Heirs of the Old Ones
by Tech Jammer
Summary: When the Forked Tongue of Sotek appeared. Its discordance to the Great Plan set in motion for the Lizardmen to seek answers that binds their fate to the Great Vortex. When the sacred plaque shined its light that day within the depths. Buried amongst countless relics, another also shined. Its smothered light almost missed by the skink priests amidst the darkness. All except for one.
1. Prelude - Defenders of the World

Author's Note: Hey there, its been a forever ago since I've written anything. I have had the fortune of getting back into the swing of things thanks to a fellow author 'Magna Relator'. That and tastes change as you grow older and your interests differ from who you were 10 years ago. I have written shorts over the years, so this will be my first in my journey to be a competent writer as a profession.

Minor Warning: My primary lore knowledge is Warhammer 40k. WH Fantasy Battle lore has been restricted to the Total War series, shorts, other fanfics of Fantasy Battle, lore videos and wikis. Looking for someone who specializes in Fantasy Battle lore.

Defenders of the World - PROPHECY OF THE WARHAMMER

~ Solar Astromancer Temple ~

Yuckanadoozat wondered in his private moments if his departure from his home was all part of the Old Ones' foresight in the Great Plan. Like all skinks since the dawn of his people's creation, he knew his place among their kind. When the moment the spark of life opened their eyes to the living world, they knew their purpose in the grand design of their long gone masters. In deviating from his gene-writ task, he never foresaw the ripple affect his actions carried out to all Lizardmen.

The once lowly translator with feather light gentleness, steadied the stone optical tube of the astral-scope in his padded grip. He loosened his tense muscles to deftly readjust his sight on the comet for the sixth time that night. Whilst the master-crafted lenses of Hexoatl's engineering was undoubtedly sublime, it lacked many features and specialised tools that he was used to for even the most basic telescopes back home in Tlaxltlan. Nevertheless, these minor inconveniences were easily compensated with his own knowledge and calculations.

"I see you…" Yuckanadoozat whispered as he adjusted the focusing lenses of the astral scope. "The Forked Tongue of Sotek, hangs low in the sky. Now, I see it, brighter... clearer..."

Behind him, Targrax growled.

"Yes, it is. As we and our lord suspects, its hiss disturbs the Winds of Magic…" His tongue flickered in the air. Excitement welled in his breast to understand the astral event before him. "Its early emergence is a discordance to what the stars and the plaques foretold."

Yuk stepped away from the astral-scope to raise his head skyward towards the night sky. Not to observe the comet in further detail; but simply to take the short brief time to marvel at the stars, while renewing his resolve on the mystery behind the aberrant nature to the comet's untimely appearance.

His tongue flicked, briefly tasting the dew in the moist cold air. He turned away from the scope, its purpose for now served, he made his way down the spire of Mazadamundi's Astromancy chamber. Yuk skipped his way down over multiple steps, a torch held in one hand to light his way, in the other his staff of office that spoke of his status as a Star-Priest.

Yuk needed to consult the plaques again, hoping it illuminate the shroud of the discordant comet.

"Come companion, we must consult the plaques" Yuckanadoozat called out to the kroxigor at the foot of the spire, passing him in his haste to seek out his current quarry.

"Grrr…" Tar-Grax's large lungs grumbled in his barrel-shaped torso, before huffing a cloudy puff from his nostrils. Wordlessly, Tar-Grax followed after the Star Priest, matching the skinks fleet-footed steps with his short lumbering strides.

~ Vault Chamber ~

Something was amiss…

Their swift pace to the sacred chamber grounds smells heavily of a great portent in the air. The inner square leading to the entrance was deftly quiet. All the sounds from the natural flora of the jungle ceased. All seemed to have sunk into a state of perpetual silence; only their breathing indicated the Skink and the Kroxigor's presence.

Ten saurus temple guards standing steadfast in perimeter of the gate, still as stone statues.

Yuk's vocal cords by reflex vibrated with apprehension, the clicking of his throat breaking the unnatural silence that smothered the night thus far. It only took the first click from his throat the saurus sentinel's that brought the blazing cold glare of the saurus elite's attention.

Tar-Grax shuffled closer to the scribe. He shadowed over Yuk's body, ready to defend him in a moment's notice. A futile effort, alone one of the hulking guards could easily separate his head from his shoulders. Even so, he would gladly sacrifice his own essence before the skink's that is vital in the Old One's plans.

The spawn brothers slowly and cautiously took measured steps to the antechamber that lead to the underground vault of the sacred plaques. Wary of the red and amber gazes of the temple guards that stand vigil against would be trespassers.

Eventually, their slow trudge brought them to two that stood directly in front of the gate. Each perfectly sized, to stand guard on both sides of the stone door.

Tar-Grax matches the Temple Guard's glare with his own. Despite the kroxigor's greater stature, he knew the only outcome between his physical might to their martial prowess; he would be dead before he could even start to move his hammer.

Yuckanadoozat tapped his staff twice, one shifted his sight to the Skink Priest, while the other kept his sight remained on the kroxigor. The one who had his undivided attention observed him, scrutinizing him looking for qualities that eluded Yuk's understanding. The moment passed as the Temple Guard chuffed. As if they were one being, the two saurus warriors blocking the door stepped aside. The guardians stood in parallel to the frame of the doors before both pressed their respective palm against the gold inscriptions on the door. The magic charged within the gold glowed its etheric lights as the energy contained within the metal coursed through the lines of power that travelled all throughout the mechanism.

With a sound like the shifting of tectonic plates, the doors began to open without the aid of gears, pulley, hinges or pulleys. A testament to the arts that the Lizardmen were able to preserve since ancient times past.

Yuk and Tar hurried inside the moment the doors were wide enough for both to enter, incentivised not to make further eye contact with the Temple Guards.

The antechamber was an empty hold. Its walls lined with glyphs that spoke of the Hexoatl's ancient past, but nothing of value. For trespassers, this was an empty room that held treasures or trinkets. In truth, it is a ruse. The room was a deathtrap where unfortunate intruders would be cleansed in fire by the solar charged crystals that dotted along its walls, ensuring a conflagration so great not even their bones would be spared.

Both quickly made their way towards the antechamber's center. Yuckanadoozat and Tar-Grax resettled their bearings once they were inside, and waited patiently for the room to activate with their presence. The doors leading outside closed shortly at the temple guard's command, leaving them to the silence of the chamber.

The floor shook, but repetitive familiarity with the vault's elevation platform have made them intimate with the vault's workings. The presence of the Temple Guards were included in their frequent trips, and is a constant in their ventures going in and out of the vault when they first began to serve under Lord Mazdamundi's command. What concerned them was that despite knowing their Lord's express order for both to have full access to the vault chamber, the Temple Guards were more alert than usual. Meaning, something has happened between his time in the Astromancer Temple to the now.

A vibration and momentary feeling of displacement, set the pair on their downward descent into one of the few last repositories of knowledge and the prophecies set by the Old Ones in the Great Plan.

"What do you suppose has happened Tar-Grax?" Yuk asked.

"Grrr..."Tar-Grax growled.

"I suppose companion." Yuk replied. He brushed aside a few feathers that swayed towards his eyes. Their trips down into the tunnels were always quiet affairs. But the situation has changed, something in the vault has agitated everyone in its vicinity.

Evident by a light at the end of the tunnel beneath them.

Their descent slowed. The sense of weightlessness vanishing the moment the dais rested on the plynth. Surrounding them, another cadre of Temple Guards stood in vigilance in the reverse. They secured the vault from within, not out.

Identical to the guardians on the surface, two stand before the vault gate that separates Yuk from the plaques inside. Haloed by the light from the inside, their silhouette made them seem larger than they appear to be.

Yuk stepped forward in front of Tar-Grax. The hardest hurdle has already been past. What lies beyond is where he is needed most, and he has no fear of the saurus guardians before him. Tar-Grax follows in step, resolute.

The two, without any posturing, stood aside for the Star-Priest.

He lifted his hand, and lightly pressed his palm upon the dial engraved in the likeness of Chotec. With but a thought and a tug on the blue wind, the glyphs upon the rings flared with power. Soon, the rings begin to turn.

Where normal hands would have the arduous task of spinning the individual rings manually, the vault was tuned to respond to those who wielded the Winds of Magic. All one hundred rings began to spin into a dizzying blur. Following Yuk's telepathic commands, normal eyes could not even begin to comprehend which began to turn one direction or which ring stopped before turning in the other.

One by one, each ring stopped as per the combination sequence Mazdamundi engraved into Yuckanadoozat's very own essence. The door followed an identical security measure to Itza; it did not open to one combination, but a combination unique to a Skink or Saurus granted to them by Slann. This was a boon Mazdamundi granted to the Star-Priest as a form of trust. Lest he does something that deserved the Slann's retribution. A thought that Yuk would sooner throw himself into a volcano, than allow that thought come into fruition.

Ninety rings became seventy. Seventy became forty. Forty shrunk down to ten. Until the last ring stopped spinning.

A near silent click was heard. Next came the thundering boom as the interlocking rings that served as the doors slid back to allow entry. Where the excess of divine light that once held it all back now flooded into the chamber. It spilled across the hold brimming with ancient power. What was once a somber dim chamber, became daylight as it travelled up the shaft, and exploded into the surface.

It was an awe inspiring to those who gazed and felt a glimmer of the old power left behind by their now long gone masters. Even those who now follow the Serpent God, never forget their reverence to the Old Ones.

Yuk stepped forward into the light, and Tar-Grax followed. His third eyelid shielded him from the blinding light of the sacred plaque at the far end of the corridor. Other Skink translators bore witness to the sign of things to come.

Red crested skink braves twitched with their sails flared, alert of possible enemies even down here this stronghold. WIth the wretched Skaven, one must be wary of even the ground they stand on even in Hexoatls's stronghold.

"Look Tar-Grax" Yuk whispered in awe as he traced the shining plaque when began to reveal the scripts and codicis that lies within.

"Grr…" the Kroxigor nodded in agreement at this momentous event.

"One prophecy shines above all others." Yuk's finger traced over a line that only he could currently see. The other skinks listened intently to the Star-Priests words. "The prophecy, speaks of the Great Vortex. The Vortex, of the warmbloods."

Out of the corner of their eyes, other plaques began to shine within the sacred chamber. Soon, they were bathed in the golden glow of the plaques. Every skink began to scatter in all directions to record and decipher their meanings in hopes to present their findings to their Slann-Mage Priest. All of them important, all of them vital to the Great Plan. Not one must be overlooked.

Yuckanadoozat kept his eyes firm on the Plaque of the Vortex reading and deciphering the clues that lie in its glowing aspect.

A distraction broke his concentration. Annoyed he glanced to Tar-Grax who nudged him with his hammer. Whatever transgression he would convey to his companion was withheld as he looked upon the kroxigor's unusually focused demeanor.

His eyes were intense. Sharp and focused. Something has caught his eye that it demanded his attention and nothing else. Yuk followed the object of Tar-Grax's attention that was locked in his companion's line of sight.

A glimmer, a faint shimmer of light, high above their heads amidst countless artifacts and relics.

A plaque was embedded within a sundial at its center carved in the likeness of the Old One of the Sun Chotec. Its brilliance, hidden amidst hundreds that shadowed its need to be seen. A plaque that they would have missed, had it not been for his friend.

Yuk pulled his attention away from the alcove, to make his uphill climb and sought out to the one lonely plaque, that stood out against the darkness...

~ Itza - The Temple of Sotek ~

The First City.

For more than ten-thousand years, one truth remains undisputed when even entire landmasses split and the slow evolutionary rise of the younger races that populate the world; Itza is and will remain.

It is the temple-city when the first Old One set foot upon the world. In a time before the world was even given a name. Home to the Venerable Lord Kroak of the First Generation, it has ever been the eternal bastion of the lizardmen throughout the eons. Everything that is known of the Lizardmen's roots was or will ever be can be traced back to The First City. Its history and glory unmatched even in the present in spite of having lost so much since the Great Catastrophe. It stands as a testament of their former power and legacy.

Like their brethren in Temple Cities of the Sun and Moon the Star-Priests too have scrutinizing the aberration of the early emergence of the comet. While skink priests ruminate among themselves over the comet; One special Skink, seeks answers the only way he knows will give him the answers he seeks.

With a sacrificial offering of the mewling filth clenched in his fist.

The shrill of the screeching vermin wailed, bawling for mercy and salvation from his captor. A sign that the Horned Rat would rescue him from his inevitable his doom. This skaven was on of the special clutch. Whose rich black fur meant that he was supposed to be one of the Stormvermin, a mighty warrior who was supposed to do great and many things in the Great Horned Rat's name. His now dead Grey Seer who he abandoned to the tender mercies of goblin-spiders said he would.

Now. This supposed 'special' warrior was nothing but food for the lizard's Serpent God.

His tendons were cut ensuring he could not move, his fingers smashed to dust, his teeth pulled, and his genitals castrated. Those were not the worst of his indignity, his torturer ensured his agony was eternal and ever waking, with but a tiny sliver of the dagger's venom in his ruined toothless maw. The small droplet of venom burned at his tongue the moment it touched. This pain would travel deep in both the physical realm and of the soul. It's pain only grew ever more as it travelled down his throat where he felt his insides screaming with nonexistent fire in his veins. The pain robbed him of sleep, and the pleasure of passing out to escape his torment ensured that his blood pumping with maximized vigour and his nerves aflame with activity.

For five moons did this skaven suffered for his existence. Even now, death will not release him from his suffering.

Tehenhauin: The Prophet of Sotek, climbed the steps of the great temple with eager revere. His sacrifice personified the pain that all lizards suffer and the ultimate fate of the tainted children of the Great Enemy. Very soon one more rat will be sacrificed to the Deliverer and be devoured by his god.

Surrounding this mighty figure of awe and worship, the Cohorts of Sotek bow their heads in reverence to the avatar of Sotek's will upon the steps that leads to the very altar where the sacrifice will be disemboweled. These skinks were more than just skink warriors with red crests, their entire bodies were red. As though they were dipped in the dye of fresh blood.

Singular in his current purpose to the task at hand, Tehenhauin at last looks upon the sacrificial altar with a savage toothy grin as he ascended the final few steps. In his eagerness to throw the latest skaven into the infinite depths of his god's bowels, he unknowingly clenched the rat's neck, suffocating the skaven. Whether he realized it or not, he didn't care, his suffering alone was a tribute in itself, all skaven kind will perish one day. Sotek demands it.

Finally, the Prophet reached the sacrificial altar. The plinth was carved with exquisite detail in the likeness of Sotek's visage; where his gaping maw faced towards the sky to swallow the sacrifice whole, while his tongue formed a grooved canal where the spilled blood of the sacrifice will stream towards the pit of serpents.

Tehenhauin would not dally anymore than needed. He had a worthy offering to give to the Serpent God this night.

Screaming vermin sobbing filled the moonlit night. He felt his head almost being pulled from his body as his messy swollen scars rubbed raw against the impact from being stabbed into the stone. The grooves dug mercilessly into his flesh as claws and sinew made sure that he felt every single one of his reopened wounds. His glassy beady eyes blurred into focus amidst the pain, where the last thing he saw before his sanity finally left him, was the sight of cold red eyes, and the dagger that glowed the ethereal light of the god's chosen one.

Tehenhauin thrust his dagger into the sacrifices' chest. With a crunch and squelch, he broke through the flesh and bone of skaven as it convulsed from the venom's immediate effect, where the heart is forced to pump blood faster, and flowed quickly from his exposed wound. He was not yet done though. With a swift tug, he pulled the waving edge down from his chest to his abdomen. Satisfied with his work, he sheathed his dagger, before grabbing the each incision and pulled them open! Exposing his guts and his still beating heart to the elements.

Where his incision left a trickling river that flowed down the canal, his exposed inside came rushing out like a flood gate. Followers of Sotek look upon this ceremony and feel only elation as the altar's canal ran down its downward flow, where the spilled blood formed a river of red that formed Sotek's body with the altar as its head.

It was magnificent. Sotek would be elated with this offering.

With the offering complete, Tehennhauin begins his plea, to unveil the mystery behind Sotek's omen. That was not foretold to him. He stepped up onto the platform, looking down upon the face of his enemy. He hissed in disdain just even looking upon his enemy. With purpose in his breast, he reached down into the open wound with a grip on its spine and guts, he hauled the sacrifice above his head high above him! Showering him in the blood of his enemy, as he roared in the saurus tongue to speak to his god.

"Mighty Sotek! Your comet flies low in the sky this night! I seek your guidance as your prophet! Why has it emerged before what was foretold within the Sacred Plaques?" He put pressure in his grip, causing the rat to whine. "Give me sight oh Serpent God! So that I may be enlightened!" He roared his prayer into the night, to Sotek in the realm of the gods.

"I offer this token in beseeching you to answer! This one is suffering incarnate! It represents the pain we the children of the Old Ones have suffered throughout the eons and the fate of all the spawns of ruin!" He shook his still living mewling sacrifice to emphasize his agony. "May you be sated this night and show me! So I will prepare more sacrifices in your next offering!"

He heaved his blood soaked arms back. Pouring every bit of zealous strength into his gifted musculature offered.

"PRAISE TO SOTEK!"

And hurled the sacrificed skaven into the pit.

Lightheaded as he was, the ratman could only watch in dread. He sees it. In his final moments. Through the hundreds of thousands of eyes of the serpents that he was falling in. He saw not the Great Horned Rat that was supposed to devour him in his death, where he could rest in oblivion. He saw the Serpent God of the lizard things. And he saw the infinite abyss that is its gullet.

He knew in his treacherous and filthy heart, he will know no peace. Only an eternity of digestion in the stomach of the Serpent God.

Tehenhauin watched in silence and took satisfaction in the fleshy splash of the skaven disappearing in the serpents, before he kneeled upon the ceremonial slab in meditation. His offering of Sotek's enemy completed. All he could do now was wait for his god to answer.

In and out. He steadied his breath. His spirit at peace. Waiting. Patient and still.

Then, something changed the silence.

It started as one, but then the sound grew, for him to take notice. The combined rising pitch of countless snakes from within the pit. He looked down from atop the plynth from which he kneeled and witnessed Sotek manifesting through his serpents as the medium.

Where the snakes undulated over each other in an endless stream of scales and coil, they were still, and locked eyes with his own. The Serpent God and his prophet were in commune.

Tehenhauin gazed into Sotek, and in turn Sotek conveyed his thoughts to his prophet. Of events of things to come flow into the Prophet's thoughts. Along with its many dangers.

First, he saw the home of the Elves, the island of Ulthuan who selfishly claimed their 'paradise' as their own. Whose ancestors ignore its true design as a biosphere for the heirs of the younger races as the Old One demanded. The Vortex swirled its mystic storm, its power to siphon the excess magic ever strong and bellowing. Yet something was different. If Sotek deemed it necessary to show him of the Great Vortex, then something must have or will happen to the mighty elven spell that require their intervention.

Then he saw a land. Beyond Ulthuan. Far across the World Pond. In the land the warmbloods call, the Old World.

He saw a mountain where a warmblood god cloaked in winter, smashed his fist upon an unnamed mountain. From the flattened stone, a flame was left in its place and wolves poured forth from its flickering embers, and spread across the distant plains.

The fiery wolves multiplied until the embers became a sea of roaring flame. The flames then started to shrink - no - congregated. Until it began to take shape and formed into a singular warmblood man. He sees the man with a hammer, held aloft high above his head imbued with divinity. With the warmblood tribes and the mountain dwellers hailing his name in defying the darkness. The man would leave his tribe ascending to stand as an equal to the gods. Before he left he threw his hammer across the stars. Its blazing trail forming into a familiar comet with two tails. Its shining aspect burning eternally bathing all who look upon it with wonder and worship.

This next vision stoked the fires of his rage, cold blood boiled in the cauldron of his body. The chittering laughter of rats cackle and glee and they look upon the world above them in their filthy hovels. Their shift beady eyes eye the comet with gnarled fingers and crookedly broken manic smiles with sinister longing. They revel with perverse intent to the comet, no doubt seeking it for some foul purpose that would bring about a coming ruin.

The comet flared its light shirking back the rats into the pits from whence they came. Within the flame of the comet, an image began to form.

He sees within its incandescence, a familiar saurus of unparalleled renown spawned of a distant past, mounted on his carnosaur with the spear once belonged to the Old One Tlanxla in one hand and the other bathed in sunlight clenched in his mechanical golden fist. Above him, a skink lord flies among the clouds guiding the Oldblood's way. The eyes and hands of Lord Mazdamundi were both racing with desperation across a seemingly endless horizon with no end, with but a beacon in the far distance being smothered by creeping tendrils of shadows.

The comet shined once more, blinding his sight. He saw it descend from the heavens. And its blazing trail ended when it fell upon the hand of a warmblood. Great plumes of feathers adorn his helm clad in armor of midnight metal. He raised the hammer that was bestowed upon him with his god's blessing and rode into battle atop a winged beast.

Wherever the hammer swung, his enemies fell. The bloodshed of his enemies in the wake of his melee great and vast. The prophet could appreciate such zeal with the warmblood dealing death upon his blows. Yet... it eluded the champion the importance of what makes this one significant to his god and his people.

His answer came shortly the moment the blood began to stir.

The spilled blood of his enemies left all across the battlefield pooled and coiled. It swirled like a forming hurricane. From the blood, a pillar rose to the sky reaching out for the warmblood and his hammer. A red serpent rose from the blood! It was none other than Sotek himself! He seeks the warmblood not as a foe but as a fellow champion!

As the warmblood roared into the skies in the name of his god who bequeathed him his hammer. He could hear it clearly now the name of the god the warmblood praised, Sigmar.

Sotek began to coil around the warmblood's form, reverting back to the blood that was now Sotek's. The serpent shifted and transformed into a maelstrom. A shower of red that bathed the warmblood in his essence, obscuring Tehenhauin's sight.

The storm passed, and from the hurricane of Sotek's life fluid, the warmblood emerged reborn!

For he too now bared a bright red crest upon his head and back. He roared once more to the sky, his red crest aglow like fire, and the hammer in his hands shined its blinding light once again. He flew again into the distance. From the land stretching across the world Sotek watches, and from the sky his god Sigmar watches from the sun.

The world soon flared and blurred a murky white before Tehenhauin was forced to shut his spiritual eyes from the glare.

When the glare faded behind his eyelids and saw only darkness, he feels a sense of weight on his being and warmth showering over him. It took but a moment to realize, it was him returning to the waking world.

He mind was awake but the body refused to obey. He strained to open his eyes but was unaware of the passage of time his body succumbed during his vision quest. When Sotek pulled his soul from his body into the ether, his body fell into a near-deathlike state. Silent and still. While blessed by Sotek to live far beyond the average of skinks, it remained a pale comparison to the superior design of the Saurus and the Slann.

Regardless, Tehenhauin persevered. He forced his death sleeping body to wake. Lungs that only took in the bare minimal was forced to return to norm and legs that sat kneeling throughout the night were weak from the arduous position. Slowly but surely, Tehenhauin rose from his spiritual journey and returned to the material realm. His strength returning with every passing moment.

Tapered feet and the clacking of claws against stone steadied his footing. His eyelids fluttered open. Greeting him from the blurry darkness were the first rays of the morning sun, shining through the canopy of Lustria's jungle.

Shortly after, his eyes opened and the blurry shapes of the material world sharpened before it fully came into focus. He took but a moment to marvel at the world before him, of being Sotek's prophet, before he drank deep of the mission given unto him.

He could scarcely believe it, but a new age is upon them all that was undoubtedly within the Great Plan of the Old Ones!

Sotek has need of him to strengthen the lizardmen of an upcoming conflict with the elves and the Great Vortex. A war was on the horizon surrounding the Vortex, and he will ensure that the lizards will be the ones to secure their victory in the many battles to come.

Yet his pilgrimage must be handled wisely, for his labor was not just simply to ensure the Great Vortex be claimed by Sotek and his kind.

But he must also seek out the warmblood that would bear Sotek's blessing. Marking him as the first true man follower to the Cult of Sotek.

He ruminated on this intriguing revelation. While the warmblood tribe Amazons worship Sotek, it was always muted compared to the lizards who have experienced his manifested presence. No doubt very soon, all of Lustria's champions will serve in one form or another do their part in the oncoming war; Nakai the Wanderer, Chakax the Eternal Warden, Tetto'eko Astromancer of the Constellations and most assuredly Gor-Rok the Great White Lizard will take part in the war for the Vortex against the coming enemies.

Yet they were strangely absent from the vision. Sotek was very specific to show him Kroq-Gar the Last Defender of Xhotl and Tiktaq'to Master of Skies. Revered champions of Lord Mazdamundi's retinue whose presence alone serve as a physical manifestation of their slann master's will. Something did not align.

They were running towards a light shrouded in darkness, why them and not include himself? or the others who follow the Great Plan? He searched through the memory of his vision hard, to see the vision in the whole and not the pieces.

The first spoke of the gods of the warmblood, that told him the story of the winter god and how from the flame a champion who held a hammer was born before ascending to godhood. His ascension was marked with the blazing comet of Sotek's Forked Tongue. The warmbloods see the comet differently, but they revered it all the same. Meaning the worship of their god is connected to Sotek as well!

The wretched vision of the Skaven filled him with disgust, at how perverse they leer at Sotek's symbol. He calmed himself though to study the vision through a logical mind. The rats have a plan with the comet. Simple as that, but he cannot fathom what. All he can understand it concerns the comet and Vortex. All the more reason the lizards must rise to be the victor.

His line of contemplation eventually returned to the primary topic of his concerns; Kroq-Gar and TikTaq-To.

The immediate question came to him; where were the others? The answer naturally came to the Prophet. Mazdamundi's champions were sent for a different purpose. They were separated from the war for the Vortex. Why? Tehenhauin did not understand.

If one was a lesser being, one would think that they were being excluded. Ignored and lesser favored to Mazdamundi's champions. Such weak and poisonous thoughts only exists in the warmbloods who are destined for ruin. No. Something so obtuse would never be within Sotek's vision. He recalled the look of desperation upon their faces in their usually implacable mien and the vision of the shadowy tendrils.

The epiphany of the answer filled Tehenhauin with both reverence and dread.

The light in the distance was not a metaphysical light of the lizardmen seeking their salvation. The light was a literal physical representation of the one who bore the hammer. Kroq-Gar and Tiktaq'to were racing to the light in order for it not to be smothered, while he would be tasked in the major fight for the Vortex.

This was not just a war for the Vortex on multiple fronts, but two wars on multiple fronts. Mazdamundi's Champions, alone and far away from Lustria undertaking a journey to build their armies and secure the survival of the chosen warmblood of the hammer god Sigmar and in the near future also a chosen of Sotek.

Tehenhauin vow to his god with the rising sun as his witness, he will give him the blood of a thousand sacrifices in his next battle. He knows what he must do. He will see his soon to be kin of Sotek, but he is not the one to meet him first. That honor belongs to Mazdamundi's champions, while he and the others marshal their forces for the defense of Lustria and the means in which they will enforce their authority on the Great Vortex.

"THANK YOU MIGHTY SOTEK!" He roared to the morning skies arms raised to reach out and praise his god.

"I have seen your vision of the future! I accept this mighty quest you set before us all" His bellow stirred the others from their sleep, hearing the words from their prophet being spoken. Tehenhauin glanced towards his surrounding followers. Jumping off the sacrificial stone, he made his way down the steps while addressing his brethren.

"Brothers! Sotek has commanded us to lead out across Lustria in aiding our brothers to claim the Vortex!"

The Cohorts of Sotek chirped and screeched in a chorus of sound with zeal in their eyes, knowing that not only will the blood of their enemies be spilled in Sotek's name, but a saga in which will usher in a new age and advancement in the Great Plan.

Tehenhauin reached the foot of the temple, where his retinue of saurus guardians await his command. Along with the Stegadon who has the honor of carrying the restored lost technology of the Old Ones. The Engine of the Gods.

A sudden chill swept through the air. A sudden, unmistakable presence that commanded all to obey his every word, his instincts telling him all too well the source of the sudden charge surrounding him that affected all the lizardmen. The proof of this ones presence was touched by everyone, especially himself, darted their heads to the Pyramid of Lord Kroak. Without words, he made his way on foot to the Venerable slann's demesne.

His departure would be delayed but not unwelcome. For the living avatar of Itza's might, The Great White Lizard: Gor-Rok. Has been roused from his guardianship of Lord Kroak and stewardship of the temple city, and he demands for Tehenhauin to speak with him.

~ Kingdom of Beasts ~

An ancient Oldblood makes his first steps on the beaches of the Temple of Skulls. The briney moist sand depressed beneath his clawed feet while the waves of the morning tide continually brushed against the once lonely shores.

Strong beats of a legion of a hundred leathery wings casted its numerous shadows. High above the last living saurus of Xhotl, the Master of Skies nearly blotted out the sun with his mighty cohorts of terradon and ripperdactyl riders. Free at last from being confined within the stone holds, the beasts were eager to freely soar the skies and perch upon the flora and fauna suited for their needs.

Tiktaq'to was tasked to make his base in Tlaqua, and much like Kroq-Gar they are to muster their forces and mobilize the nearby temple cities under the saurus warrior's command.

He paused to breath in the fresh morning air of the ocean and the trees as he stood there, watching Hexoatl's vanguard force flying ahead of him to enact his role in the Great Purpose. While he stayed to enact his. His mechanical hand clenched tight with determination, the Great Plan is not yet done with him; for Xhotl's memory still yet lives through him.

A familiar shape entered into the Saurus Oldblood's periphery. Leaning down, Kroq-Gar stroked Grymloq's bright red copper snout. Grymloq moved to his partner's side and lied down on the soft sands. Sheer relief from the agitation of being confined for weeks on end with nowhere to run or stalk flooded through their instinctive bond.

When Kroq-gar looked back to the skies and Tiktaq'to finally disappeared beyond the distant mountain pass, did the transition of being aboard at sea and return to the battlefield was complete.

He relished one last brush of the lapping waves and the gale of the ocean breeze, before he steeled himself to the task of absolute import imparted by Lord Mazdamundi.

He was to gather his strength and make haste in his journey north of the Southland to the city the warmbloods name Altdorf and seek out the one named within the now dubbed 'Sacred Plaque of the Warhammer' Karl Franz. The plaque spoke strongly of the current living incarnation of their god Sigmar and how he was in danger of being swallowed by the shadows of the Great Enemy.

Kroq-Gar was determined not to let a vital piece within the Old One's design fall. With the coming struggle for the Great Vortex as all of Lustria and especially Lord Mazdamundi gather and contemplate the Sacred Plaques in the coming rituals required, he fully understood that any ritual that siphons power from the Vortex will weaken the barrier between the material and the empyrean. In the wake of bolstering the matrices of the Great Warding, the Great Enemy will no doubt seek to exploit the weakened Vortex and bring about the ruination they seek to do like so long ago.

His campaign north was one that would bring lesser saurus crumble by the weight of the monumental march to the Old World. Disadvantaged, without knowledge of when the slann's rituals will be enacted - or worse - their enemies, he is forced to always be under the assumption that they can begin at anytime. The more rituals being done, the greater the jeopardy of Karl Franz falling to the overwhelming weight of the ruinous powers.

The luxury of time is against the mighty warrior and he must spend it wisely to build a suitable force in the inevitable battle for the warmblood's survival.

Kroq-Gar leaped from the sands to sit upon his throne. Grymloq stood from its momentary respite and faced toward the sea. Both rider and mount witness the beginning of a new war that will decide the fate of the world once again.

The armada of a hundred stone ships were beaching the shores of their new land. A migration of lizardmen not seen since Sotek's coming.

Saurus Warriors led the way at the front. Scaley sinew and the perfection of savage ferocity bred only for battle were hungry for the chance of bringing devastation to those who defy the will of the Old Ones.

Skink craftsmen and farmers who will be supplying them in the war effort joined their mainline warriors shortly as they gathered and inspected their wares and take stock of their crop. Whereas crests of differing colors signified their roles, some of the red-crested skinks banded together to join Kroq-Gar's coming assault.

Lastly rising from the rear, the kroxigors surfaced from the ocean. The usually docile labor lizards hauled the mountainous crates and gems the size of boulders. Lividness marred their usually placid demeanors. Understandable given the water they were forced to endure for the duration of the naval journey was salt water instead of the river water they dwelled in.

All species of the lizardmen were here. Vital in the building of the legion he will soon be leading. More were coming from the ships from other lizardmen, to the tamed beasts that they managed to transport. Their ranks will only swell in the coming weeks and months when more temple cities rally under him.

For now he was satisfied with what he has at his disposal, he and Grymloq make their way to the once lowly temple. Their long stride to the first stronghold of the many that will follow. Even here all the way from the beach the unmistakable smell of ratmen were nearby.

And he would have first blood.

AN: The geography might be slightly inaccurate as I am using a mix of the 2004 world map and Mortal Empires map as a basis (Before you say anything, yes I am fully aware it is not accurate as it is a shrunk down map and its only half of the world at best)

Thank you for reading. Comment and Critique.


	2. Chapter 1 - The First Step

Author's Note: Hi everyone thank you so much for taking the time to read the first chapter and its is just so overwhelming on the inside. Anyway, nothing much will be happening this chapter as it is still a matter of picking up steam before anything truly substantial will happen. The surprise I have for the next chapter will be the moment in which things are about to go intense for everyone involved as it deals with the aftermath of the comet and how it affects them differently.

Minor Warning: For anyone who has canon need for the Old One lore and how they created the races, I have taken some creative liberties with it to fit the narrative and I how perceive what the Old Ones actually wanted. They are already enigmatic as it is so I think I am within reason with how I deal with them here

The First Step - ONE FOOT IN FRONT OF THE OTHER

~Hexoatl - Star Chamber Temple~

"**Since the first days of creation...**"

In ancient times. When the world was still whole. The Old Ones saw potential in this world. Their foresight witnessed great promise from the younger races that would emerge from the planet.

The first step in the long process of nurturing this world and its future inhabitants. They needed tools. More than tools - companions. Born from the best qualities this world offered. Shaped to their designs. Unbreakable instruments of their will and the exemplars of enlightenment.

Molded and genecrafted to become their ideal servants. Utilizing biomantic warpcraft the likes the younger races today can only hope to fathom. They created perfection in the reptilian race born to follow in the path set for them.

"**We, the servants of the Old Ones have guarded the realm of Lustria for more than ten millenia.**"

Skinks. Saurus. Kroxigors. And the Slanns. Together they form the core of their race. From a theoretical viewpoint, each are a race of their own. All biologically and mentally different from each other. Yet the practical reality remained as they were since their conception. A united collective race each a vital pillar working in tandem with one another. They had no name for what they were called when they see themselves as one and the same.

So they simply let the ignorance of the younger races call them as they in their eyes see them: The Lizardmen.

"**We are** **their wards. Their custodians. We are all their children. The First Race who to one day be like our masters and become the teachers to the younger races on the path of enlightenment.**"

"**At the side of the Old Ones we nurtured those who are part of their Great Plan.**"

When the elves emerged, the Old Ones welcomed their race with open arms guiding them not dissimilar of a mentor and their apprentice. Then the dwarves came shortly after whose rigidity were an admirable quality the Old Ones nurtured but hoped to curb to allow more flexibility.

Then man rose to evolution.

Despite their vast wisdom and knowledge they assumed mankind and were found lacking. Too primitive to ascend among their ranks. Too simple to comprehend the universe and saw them as a servile race. But the universe surprised them. They watched as man had a trait that made them a stunning candidate. While they lacked the longevity of the elves, or hardiness of the dwarves. Mankind proved them wrong by showing them their incredible propensity in the speed of their growth and adaptability.

High learning aptitude that while slower than the elves are capable of reaching their level with the ability to survive in any environment given enough time and resources. Another candidate for growth to enlightenment. They too taught them their ways and from them, the Truthsayers live even in the present. Teaching to their kin willing to listen of the Old Ones on the path of enlightenment.

"**And destroyed any who opposed them!**"

Of course like any garden, there would always be the undesirables that disrupted the controlled environments of their charge's biospheres. Warranting the need to send their servants to exterminate numerous hostile invasive species to complete and total extinction. All of them met their demise under the cleansing sinew and conflagration of the Old One's servants. With the exception of one much to their chagrin.

The Orks. This unnaturally hardy species was bizarre in their construction. A fungal race seemingly native to the planet bear no desire to elevate themselves other than for the pure joy of combat. The spores released upon their death carried in the winds or burrowed immediately in the soil makes them difficult to truly eradicate the greenskin menace without causing irreparable damage to the immediate surrounding area.

They have long suspected that this race was tailor made. An engineered feat similar to the Lizardmen and the subsequent younger races. They were robust, resilient and have no root basis of an evolutionary ancestry. A mystery that puzzled the Old Ones; which suspected intentional tampering during or prior to their arrival. Nevertheless they begrudgingly accepted the hand dealt to them. That the orks were here to stay. While egregious that they cannot be eradicated, they were only an occasional annoyance at best that their servants quickly made short work of. Ensuring their grand design remained intact and unimpeded.

For it will never detract the sole fact: This world was a wonderful jewel among the black void of the universe. Despite its hostile wildlife. Its native dangers. This world held so much potential. They wanted to bring about the shining vision of the younger races reaching enlightenment on their own terms. To be their coming equals and flourish amongst the stars, on their own paths. Adding and enriching the universal harmony of the cosmos.

A vision… forever destroyed. That ended in horrible tragedy.

When the Stellar Gates ruptured, and the daemons flooded the world carrying the taint of their foul gods. The Old Ones were forced to flee. Leaving their servants, their children behind.

"**Then the daemons of the Great Enemy came seeking the destruction of all wonders the Old Ones sought to build**."

Yet they did not stand idle. They did not simply stare lifelessly to crumble beneath the tide of monsters and madness. No. They fought with all the fury and anger from the deepest depths of their beings towards the ruinous powers by their mere existence for befouling their world with their presence.

They would not allow it!

"**The Dark Gods sent their hordes against us and we denied them. For every step of sacred ground their tainted shards dared to tread we banished countless scores of their accursed ilk into the oblivion where their shadows still remain.**"

The younger races who the Old Ones have managed to shepherd into civilized advanced sentience had their own names for this dark age. The Lizardman called this ancient war: The Great Catastrophe. When the ruinous powers sought to swallow it whole; to destroy and to desecrate the world. This shining beacon of potential. It was the lizardmen who fought the hardest of battles, who held the lines where all the younger races would have been crushed. They, who fought for the sake of the world. They, immune to corruption were antithetical to Chaos when others would succumbed to weakness.

Tireless. Unceasing. They fought the daemons and their fouls gods for more than six hundred years.

It was because of this...they lost the most from that long...long...battle.

"**We who have fought where others would have crumbled. Also bear the burden of being the ones who felt the most loss. It is through our sacrifice that have kept the shadow of the Great Enemy at bay so that the younger races may flourish...**" The Slann-Mage Priest of the Sun closed his eyes to let his let the torrent of his feelings flow "**A price my master willingly paid and through his teachings does the Great Vortex stands.**"

For if not for Lord Mazdamundi's master, the Venerable Lord Kroak; who taught the elves in desperation the ways of magic. They would never have been able to cast their great spell without the lizardmen to stem the tide of the daemons.

In all the years of Mazdamundi's life he has felt only great rage twice. Nothing so trivial as bouts of anger or annoyance, but true unfettered rage of transgressions wrought upon them throughout his waking life.

Once in grief when his master fell to save them all from the daemons, now a Relic Priest. Twice when because of their idleness, a mutant race of rats spawned from the miasma of the Great Enemy from some hidden pit rose to disease their lands and almost poisoned their way of life!

If not for Sotek a god born from the gestalt thoughts of the lizardmen to drive them out of Lustrian shores into the ocean with his insufferable prophet. Proclaiming the Serpent God Sotek 'The Deliverer' as the one who will one day bring salvation to the lizardmen.

Galvanizing the creation of the Cult of Sotek. Spreading its influence from the meekest Skinks to the predecessor generation Slann Mage-Priests spawned in times where the Old Ones have long left the world. A thought previously unthinkable to Mazdamundi who saw this as nothing less than betrayal.

It rankled the Second Generation Slann's craw with immense vitriol. With Sotek's manifestation, and the 'Plaque of Sotek' that remains fervent in Tehenhauin's possession he can never know whether it is truly within the Great Plan of the Old Ones for Sotek's coming. While others may be satisfied with ending the debate as Sotek being part of the Great Plan, he will adamantly judge the plaque for himself the legitimacy of Sotek's right of divinity.

Sadly, even he is forced to concede. Sotek's cults grew and grew until it virtually overshadowed the Old Ones. If only for the lizardmen to have something to latch on to as a figure of hope.

Much to his ever growing sorrow. His master once touched Mazdamundi in his contemplations who claims Sotek's coming as being part of the Old Ones will. Reassured, it does no less in healing his woe. It only reinforced his stance to look at Sotek as nothing but an upstart god.

Yet Sotek's prophet was the very same Skink he and his cohorts managed against all others to not only recover the Engine of the Gods and reactivate its ancient mechanisms. But disseminated its once thought lost construction to all the temple-cities across Lustria.

He could still remember the utter confoundment he showed at Tehenhauin's gall when he marched into Hexoatl seeking his audience to present the knowledge as a gift of goodwill from Sotek. On the grounds that it was only fitting and righteous to return a lost artifact of Chotec. It was to his displeasure, simultaneously the most interesting and the most aggravating moment of his long life.

To give gratitude to the Skink Prophet and Sotek. It physically ached him...

The passage of time has not been kind to the Slann. And neither was his growing disdain year after year. They have lost so much. He spent every moment of his awakening to bring back some semblance of their former selves. All the while enduring the agonizing frustration from the many transgressions the warmbloods inflict upon their land.

Belligerent man warmbloods squat on Hexoatl's shores; raising a settlement they dare to claim their own as if it was their right! Out of control greenskins plague the southern jungles. Pirates and barbarians both living and dead taint the Lustrian shores with their raids. Thieves seeking sacred artifacts that don't belong to them!

Such was the weight of his burden left him becoming a hateful being compared to the paragon of nobility and wisdom of his master.

As the last living Slann of the Second Generation, he holds the unenviable task of safeguarding his people. His responsibilities does not simply end in Hexoatl's lands but to all of Lustria. He is living proof of a time when the Old Ones walked the earth and they entrusted the Slann to enact their will in shaping the word. His power unmatched by any would be pretender. He is the only Slann who would stride among his warriors on Zlaqq to crush his enemies as they have done so long ago.

Undaunting as he is though...there is only so much he can do by himself.

Lord Mazdamundi in his most private moments beckoned to the Old Ones. No matter how distant they may be, to grant him a sign. A signal that he too can latch onto so that he may serve in the Old Ones' Great Purpose. A sign that he must take up arms and drag his people to advance from their miserable existence and step back into the sun as the true defenders of the world!

"**I say this to you all now. Though the Forked Tongue of Sotek flew across the firmament...**" He took a deep breath. His gut expanding with stored air.

"**IT. IS. A. LIE!**" Each word spoken was an explosion of raw emotion and physical impact. Every syllable of his sentence carrying the rage of suffrage from all his ten-thousand years of life.

The assembly of Saurus, Skinks, Kroxigors and Lustria's beasts thunder their accordance to the Slann's proclamation! The earth shaking from their primal roars! They know this to be true. They have all in their own means seen the prophecies and know that the world has been deceived!

"**The Great Warding fails!...**" Mazdamundi bellowed from the great depths of his mighty girth to his assembled army of warriors from every caste in Hexoatl who wait upon his will in the square of his pyramid.

And that time was upon them all. When the Forked Tongue of Sotek sailed across the firmament. When it should not be there for another twenty years…

"**Its passing has damaged the Geomantic Web! While we have settled ourselves on simply maintaining and recovering what we lost. We have done nothing to further the Great Plan of the Old Ones.**"

Rage seethed in the Lizardmen's bodies, not because of the accusation, but knowing it all to be true. They have been on the defense for too long and the moment is upon them to not just reclaim what is lost but seek out and change the world as the Old Ones did.

"**The Slann have settled to simply stay in Lustria while we lose more of ourselves every single day! No more I say!**"

The Slann filled their thoughts with the loss of the Temple Cities throughout the eras. From the Great Catastrophe to the disease of Clan Pestilens on Chakua. They are more than willing. More than ready to go on the offensive and fight!

"**The time for inaction is over!**"

This aberration posed a significant and worrying affront to his Star-Priests and his own calculations. The comet flying above them that night was not within the scriptures or prophecies of any plaques in their possession! Something was terribly wrong.

"**We will find the missing plaques.**" Mazdamundi growled projecting his thoughts and emotions to those assembled before him "**Discover the lost secrets and reveal the true purpose of the Old Ones!**"

They assembly roared anew. Their cold-blooded veins singing with purpose as they were meant to be.

With a short telepathic broadcast he ordered his warriors to move from the square to gather at the city gates.

As one the numerous turned face to follow the Slann's instructions.

He turned to his Skink and Saurus Temple Guard retinue "**Attend to me my Skinks and Saurus. I ride with Zlaqq once more.**"

The Skinks swiftly nodded as they left in a different direction leading to the Slann's personal pen of his Ancient Stegadon Mount. While he waited, he thought back upon that night that lead up to the present.

He saw in his mind the Tlaxltan Star Priest Yukanadoozat leave the Astromancer temple that night to travel into his temple's depths to Hexoatl's Vault. Mazdamundi expected the skink to bring him anything from within the sacred reliquary that will expand his insight on the aberration. When he resurfaced from the Vault for the Slann's purview he did not expect Yuk to bring him not one, but TWO plaques.

The Old Ones never wrote a prophecy twice, even if some prophecies share correlating or similar information, each plaque is always unique and specific in its intent and meaning. It is common for more than one plaque to be studied for review. But when the plaque shines the light of the Old Ones' essence then it is the task of utmost importance that suspends all others. The greater the radiance the greater the priority.

Two plaques that very night shined the light of the Old Ones equally to each other that eclipsed all others.

One is the Plaque of the Great Vortex.

The other, the Plaque of the Warhammer.

Deciphering the Sacred Plaques revealed to him a quandary which he could not have foreseen.

The first plaque was straightforward in its message. It foretold of an ongoing conflict with the Great Vortex. It spoke of how the lizardmen will be needed to fight against the forces that seek to take advantage of the swirling mystic maelstrom. The lizardmen are tasked to complete a specific ritual that will lead them to the answers they seek. Instructions were written within to find the plaques necessary construct the Ritual of Prognostication.

Meaning it falls before Mazdamundi and the Slanns across Lustria to cast and see to it the ritual's succeed.

Yet the danger involved in their casting comes with immense difficulty. For it involved the ritual to siphon power from the Vortex due to the prophecy being directly linked to it. Meaning that when the rituals begin the veil is thinned and they would be exposed. Compounding the already inherent threat by compromising the Vortex, the magic to fuel the rituals needed were of such magnitude they will require a constant uninterrupted stream that may take days or weeks to come into fruition.

But the complication did not end there, the Vortex ritual while titanic in its complexity and long term attrition combat, it was at least clear in what they must do and prepare. Bolster defenses around the ritual sites coordinate with the other Slann of the major temple cities and mount expeditions to stop those who seek to do the same.

The Prophecy of the Warhammer however, creates complications that require Mazdamundi to make great sacrifices.

This plaque was without a doubt unique. His perfect memory has allowed him to never forget any of the thousands of Sacred Plaques throughout the ages. This one plaque bears unique circumstances where deep within it scripts outright links a warmblood to Sotek.

This one single plaque amidst all others that lie in his vault had the sole correlating information on Tehenhauin's Serpent God. Making him now in the same position as the Prophet with his Plaque of Sotek like so long ago. Mazdamundi is now the sole and only bearer of the Plaque of the Warhammer. Meaning there are now two existing plaques that contain correlating information of Sotek; One in the hands of his prophet Tehenhauin. Two in Mazdamundi's possession here in Hexoatl.

Mazdamundi deciphered the plaque the moment he was finished with the Vortex plaque. The Old Ones spoke of the warmblood Karl Franz. One who wields the hammer of his god and his chosen champion of this age. When the false comet flies and the vortex wanes, Sotek the Deliverer and Sigmar Heldenhammer will forge a pact. The time for the Children of the Old Ones to reunite with the younger races and their chosen Karl Franz will be its herald to reunification.

It did not take Mazdamundi much effort to scry for the whereabouts of Franz after meditating in his Star Chamber. He saw the man inside his Imperial Palace waiting on hand with his wizards discussing the coming of the comet.

But if the Sacred Plaque written within spoke of it being a false comet, then that means the rest of the world was being deceived! That whatever was happening must be machinated in some way by the Dark Gods. Their reverence of the comet has blinded them from the danger that will soon befall them!

It was with a heavy price, but the Old Ones demand no less. While Mazdamundi holds and reclaim his land on Hexoatl. Kroq-Gar and TikTaq'to must secure the warmblood's survival by any means necessary. While he stays on the defense and construct the rituals.

His council planned that night on what must be done to move forward. Ending with the decision to brave Kroq-Gar and Tiktaq'to across the World Pond from the farside of the land mass. There they amass a force with the Southland temple cities to march to Altdorf before the final ritual is completed.

"Master you mount is ready." A Skink brought him out of his thoughts and certainly enough Zlaqq's shadow engulfed the Slann.

The massive beast has served the Slann for thousands of years. He floated his ornamented palanquin to right himself on the platform. He scans the bowed forms of the red-crested Skink crew before dismissing them to return to their posts. They manned their turrets, raised their shields and javelins, ready to protect the Slann with their lives. From atop the Stegadon's armored hide plates, he sees his Temple Guards encircle around him in a near perfect circle.

He is ready. His warriors are ready. Time is of the essence for him, his generals, and the world.

Forward.

The mental command pushed Zlaqq towards his Temple City's gates. There is much to do in the many months to come. He hopes that Kroak's spirit is lucid enough to offer guidance when he returns to his Star Chamber.

**After** he buries Skeggi deep into the fiery magma tides of the planet! Once and for all!

~Kingdom of Beasts - The Cursed Jungle~

"Fleeee! Fleeee!"

"Many scaly things! Too many many scaly things!"

"We're about to be eaten-!" the rat spawn's screeching was silenced under the unforgiving long deserved retribution of a red-crested Skink's great maul. His head exploded in a discharge of grey matter, skull fragments and broken teeth.

Arms still outstretched from his leaping overhead strike, Teenee-Tyym pivoted his body to the left, the maul head still slick from the splattered remains of the rat corpse he spinned the great weapon in a wide sweeping arc that landed on the side of a nearby rat. The arc and momentum of his centrifugal strike shattered bones and ruptured organs. His mark died in pain drowning in his own blood. Hemorrhaging from the internal and external damage.

Like him, his cohorts threw themselves into the chaotic melee. Scores of his spawn brothers in the surrounding area swung their mace heads onto the sea of cowering rats. Relentless and gleeful in their unwavering wholesale slaughter of the tainted spawn.

With the swiftness of Itzl, Kroq-Gar led the charge to scatter the skaven into mindless terror with everyone roaring out their battle cry. Whether by the Oldbloods will or the jungle's, the flora and fauna of the Cursed Jungle came alive with activity. Teeming masses of serpents salamanders of the jungle emerged from the jungle's shadows following their tide of slaughter in eradicating the rat spawns.

Teenee took the time to see a rat that tried to limp away from the combat with his broken bone exposed legs. He hissed at the easy prey thumping the maul head before making his way over and kicked the rat onto his back wasting not a single moment to pummel it hateful visage over and over into the jungle soil.

A rat in front of him frothed at the mouth in maddened defiance to strike back after cowering away. He rewarded whatever passes for bravery for his tainted kin with a mighty upward swing. The rat's hideous visage shattered into perdition from the rising force of his maul's volcano stone blow. His limp body sailing over his pack and landing limblessly in tangles. His nervous system still twitching not catching up to the reality of his death

The sight of their headless fallen incentivised their need to flee!

And whatever resistance they had in their running battle deteriorated further when weapons that were meant for the enemy were turned on each other. With claws and rusted swords they stabbed into each other. Running stop their dead to scurry away on their hands to run like the vermin they were.

They were not about to let them get away.

The skinks gave chase to the fleeing cohort of the rat spawns. Seeing their pursuers the rats ran on all fours like the vermin parody of man they truly were. Scurrying filth that hide in the shadows and chitter in their hovels. The Skinks however only needed to match their speed. Their long running gait easily making up the added mobility of the rat's quadrupedal retreat.

Encroaching fear clouded the rats of their possible all of them thinking of the safety of the walls in the undercity holling up their entrances to wait out the lizards as they clamber over and under the foliage.

They saw the marshlands, they know it will be difficult but not impassable, all they had to do is swim for their lives and they would make it into the tunnels on the other side!

The mass of grimey fur splashed down into the marsh in a wave of rodents. True to their tainted nature of more beasts than man they paddled their way across the body of water with their hands and feet scurrying even in the way they swam across the river water.

Teenee bared his teeth grinning in the coming annihilation of the rats. They were heading right where the Oldblood wanted them.

He and his cohort speed up the nearer they reach the water. They leaped the moment their feet touched the water before diving headfirst into the murky waters. Within their element the Skinks were not stifled by the water like the rats. While they clumsily paddled and wade through the water, the Skinks simply glide through the water befitting their aquatic design. Their weapons rested comfortably against their chests while their body slithered towards their prey. Their undulated body motion propelling them to the pincer maneuver the rats were oh so unaware of. Their bright red crested head fin sailing over the water like sharks seeking out for blood.

The Skaven at the front of the pack paddled faster and threw water with every beat. All the while knowing that his motions blinded those behind him. Fully intending on taking advantage of using their bodies as a distraction so that he might get away from Sotek's spawn.

Pain exploded from beneath him! Suddenly he was in the air. Why? How?

Within the same span his brain has realized he was in the air. Twin titanic jaws crushed his body between a prison of teeth and steely scales! Life giving air expelled from his broken body depriving his senses. Before he felt gravity and whatever snared him drop back down into the river.

'He was in the water again!' Thought the Skaven.'Drowning! Spinning! Water exploded everywhere! He can't see see! He can't see anything! Something big and sharp sharp clamped down on his chest and back! Squeezed - crushing him! Everything was hurting! It hurts! HURTS! **HURRRTS!**'

Bones were breaking with every moment the thing that was crushing him. His flesh was tearing at the seams from the spinning motion depriving him of any sense of direction. His vision was going dark he was dying…

Then the rat spawn thought no more even when the last thing his mind would see is his head floating away from his body.

Teenee could see through the water as clear as he was on the surface. As accorded to the mighty Oldblood's stratagem he had the Kroxigors dived into the marshland waters so that the Skinks and Saurus cohorts can cause mayhem and coral the scattered rats into the waiting ambush of the Kroxigors.

It was a frenzy worthy of their savagery. Their spawn kin launched themselves from beneath the waiting horde. Tossing their bodies into the air before dragging them into the killing frenzy. Multi ton bodies of pure reptilian brutality encircled the rats, their terror induced floundering making them easy prey.

Heads were crushed underfist. Bodies ripped to ribbons from the Kroxigor's death rolls. While others simply drowned beneath the river in their maddened fear.

Few managed to escape the encirclement. Yet that was where the Skinks come in. Like the Serpent God the red-crested Skinks revere they strike like vipers in the water. They grappled those who managed to escape the Kroxigor's killing ground and with either daggers or their great weapons, they execute the fleeing few. Their affinity to water easily hitting the skaven with the same crushing force as they would in the surface. While others jammed their daggers into the hearts and throats of their victims.

All around them, the murky water of the marshlands ran red with the blood of skaven kind.

The killing of the skaven occured everywhere in the Cursed Jungle. Skaven filth all across the region falling into the killing zones of the Oldblood. Not one was left alive on the surface of the jungle to warn those underground of their coming.

The forces above was a but a paltry sum compared to the no doubt number of inhabitants in the wretched filth they call a city somewhere underground. Kroq will see its tunnels sealed, its gnawed out domain reburied and kill them all down to the last rat.

Impaled on the Revered Spear of Tlanxla was the head of the last Rat Ogre in the long list of Kroq-Gar's tally in the immediate area. Temple Guards dotted all around his surrounding radius. All of them showered in the blood of the Rat Ogres surrounding a rocky outcrop.

With a flick of his wrist, the dismembered head and the gore fluids of his recent kill were sent flying. Its head now lie strewn about with the rest of the dismembered horde of other Rat Ogres that his Temple Guards have slain. Such is the craftsmanship of the Old Ones, the blood of its kill slid off its head as oil is to water. Its metal remained pristine and no sign of its latests kill marred its sacred unknown metal.

Kroq-Gar inspects the inconspicuous rock formation in front of him, while Grymloq feasts on strips of flesh off the dead Rat Ogre Kroq-Gar killed. His hunt for the primary tunnel to the Skaven's undercity has led him here.

This location was rife with wilted trees and the ground dulled from the constant treading of the rats. The concentration of Rat Ogres alone was a clear indication that their hiding place was nearby, but with the area being dotted with stone it would have been a time consuming task -time he cannot afford wasting- had it not been for the Troglodon under his retinue.

Oku-Los 'sees' what the venerable Troglodon 'Vertabrik' sees. The world his eyeless mount reside in was a place of darkness filled with all manner of colors. Through the vibration that travel in its whiskers the world is constructed and given form, unrestricted by the limitations of ocular organs the Troglodon's sight did not simply allow him to see what's in front of him, but all around him.

Front and back, side to side, up and down. Attributing to his subterranean nature Vertabrik's' senses allow him to hunt his prey with flexible vertically. While his advanced sense of smell allows him to see the colors of the world. His species interpret the scent any living being with a 'color' released from their bodies that was unique to his chosen prey.

Now, Vertabrik's senses were being used to hunt a familiar race of rats he and his serpent kin's leader regularly hunted. The sweat and musk of vermin permeated the outcrop. Clashing shades of warpstone suffused green that were linked with their kind was heavy. And if Vertabrik focused, he could see the mass of the rats below them was significant.

Oku-Los and Vertabrik looked to the hunting leader to follow them.

The Saurus Oldblood and the Ancient Carnosaur followed their smaller kin upward. His Temple Guards followed shortly in lockstep keeping close to his proximity.

Emerging from the watery marsh Kroxigors and Skinks surfaced to land. While from the trees and ferns Saurus warriors slick with the fresh blood of recently slain rats linked up with the spawn braves. A successful first strike on new lands not one of their numbers was lost with their cohorts still numbering in the hundreds.

This of course was but a light skirmish. A true skaven resistance is never above on the surface, but below. Down in the tunnels In the shadows where the light of the sun cannot touch them. Where they do their depraved machinations under the bale luminations of their hoarded warpstones.

The army of Hexoatl followed the ancient Oldblood tailing Oku-Los. Whereas Kroq-Gar maintained his silence to follow their tracker. Grymloq sniffed the air smelling rats everywhere around him but the sheer amount of the stench obfuscated his ability to track them.

Vertabrik being a Troglodon did not share this complication. Already he could smell and hear the shape of the rat made tunnel nearby. The concentration of scents thickened considerably. Oku-Los sees it in his mind how Vertabrik's thought process visualized the tunnel. The journey below is deep but easily traversable. A Troglodon's senses could only go so far, but the faint outline of the exit tunnel was visible. He only needed to get a little closer to assess the awaiting force.

Their trek eventually lead into a relatively flat clearing where the outcrop consists of boulders or the ground littered with gravel.

Vertarbik clawed the ground underneath him throwing up dirt into the air. The sound of flung granules were the only sound in the air for the lizardmen as all of them watched in silence.

Rending claws scraped against screeching metal.

"KROXIGORS TO ME!" Kroq-Gar thunderously growled. The voice of ages past speaking through him.

The kroxigors corralled to the venerable Oldblood's position at the moment. The labor lizards crowding past the Grymloq and around the digging Troglodon to join the excavation throwing mound after mound of the rocky camouflage that hid the gateway to the Skaven Undercity.

Minutes passed for the digging Kroxigors and the Troglodon and soon enough, when the digging stopped and all of them beheld what lay beneath the gravel and stone, they saw the gate that will lead them to their undercity. A manically constructed doorway stood their way the icon of their Horned Rat God etched in warpstone. It was a large gate. Big and wide enough for the rat's engines or beasts to easily fit through

The Skink Priests loathed at the sight of the abominable symbol. Red-Crested Skinks head fins flared and snarled in incense of their God's nemesis. Kroxigors show their rage in a simmering rage where it is a quiet boil before and channel it when they meet their enemy.

While the Saurus seemingly retained an air of cool indifference. On the outside, they were as silently stoic and uncaring of the icon like statues than living beings. That sort of ignorant assumption from the warmbloods couldn't be further from the truth. They were warriors born. Constructed by the Old Ones to be their soldiers. Their enforcers. The chasm of their hatred and anger towards their enemies eclipsed the Skinks and Kroxigors like a candle is to a volcano.

None however, can compare to such depths with the sole exception of Lord Mazdamundi than Kroq-Gar. He has lived throughout the ages. Lived in a time where the Old Ones were still among them even when the last were forced to flee. He holds within him an everlasting and ancient fury that will never find calm no matter what brief moments of peace may come his way.

His longevity is matched only by his experience and the innumerable enemies he has personally slain could fill entire cities throughout the ages.

Men. Dwarf. Elves. Orks. Undead. Daemons.

He has slain them all. And he defeated all their champions who opposed the Old Ones.

"Break it down" He hissed "Our quarry beckons their doom."

The Kroxigors happily obliged the Saurus Oldblood's request!

Surrounding the gate the Kroxigors through instinct evenly distributed themselves to the hinges that held the Skaven's gate together sealed together by the barricade behind it. The Kroxigors of course knew this and simply took the easiest method without exhausting themselves for the coming hunt.

Arms able to uproot trees singlehanded. Strength that could move boulders. Armored in scales that deflect steel! Raised over the dirty brass hinges of the gateway that bared the icon of their enemy's object of worship!

They brought their fists down as one!

**CLANG!**

A great collision of steely scales and metal sounded throughout the area like thunder that raged in the storm. That first strike dented the metal but the Kroxigors knew it was not enough. It was not never about destroying it in one go.

No.

They want the rats to know that they have come for them.

With sinew born for labor the kroxigors resumed their tasks in hammering away at the metal. All of them in sync with their pelting. Following in rhythm to their beating. It was like the soothing sounds of drums made less pleasant by the instrument being a filthy construct of the Skaven.

Down below the Skaven stopped their daily activities the moment they heard the sound of steel thunder rumbled everywhere that did not come from their workshop. They scrambled in towards their posts, grabbed their weapons, powered their machines, and unleashed their beasts preparing for the invaders. They cannot flee not while they were so close to the prize they seek here in the mountains the stupid stunties-dwarf things thought were just a legend!

One by one the bolts that held the gate to the frame crumbled and popped off. The frame itself weakening from holding back the very doors it supported. Until finally the doors gave way.

The twin hunks of wood and steel fell down into the rocky tunnel floor. The Lizardmen were through.

The Kroxigors parted before the Oldblood bowing to him so that he may be the first to lead them down.

Kroq-Gar stared into the cave. In the distance he could see the bright lights of the warpstone undercity the Skaven called a home.

The Great Plan is in motion. He could feel it. And he will see to its fruition!

He takes one last look at those behind him and commits to memory those whose essence might fall. So as to stoke the fires of his everlasting fury.

"Warriors! The Old Ones have need of us. You know our task! The Sacred Plaques demand us to find the warmblood of Sotek's chosen. If we are to honor the Serpent God then we must not fail! Come! Let us sacrifice Their foes so that we will one day cleanse the world we swore to protect and perhaps one day live to see where the Great Plan takes us!"

Kroq-Gar bellowed a savage primal roar of ancient rage. Grymloq shared in his partner's primal instincts and roared into the tunnel below. His Saurus Warriors and Temple Guards shared in their leaders' zeal and roared to the skies. Kroxigors roared their guttural bellow along with the Skinks who drowned themselves in a cacophony of whooping, hollers and chirps.

The skaven below heard it. They realized who were coming. Their cowardice nature soon warred with them running in fear of the lizards or fear of the coming punishment from their Grey Seer should they flee.

Kroq-Gar and by extension Grymloq took the first step. Both relished at the sound of creaking metal being crushed underfoot of their claws. The warpstone dimming at their destruction.

First to follow after him was Oku-Los and Vertabrik.

Next came the Temple Guards their cold blood hot with the vengeance they will wreak.

Then the Kroxigors who will serve as living barriers for their brethren.

Saurus Warriors who then trickle past the Kroxigors to scale up fortifications and slaughter the those occupying the battlements.

Then the Skinks who will bring the driving force of their cohorts into the city to slay any rat they see. Especially for Red-Crested Skinks like Teenee-Tyym brandishing his maul in anticipation for the coming slaughter to be sacrificed to Sotek.

The rumbling earth shook in the wake of their march down the tunnel. Each lizard taking the opportunity to further crumple and destroy the door underfoot. Ending with the Fire Priests at the to burn the remains until it was naught but ashes.

The Lizardmen of Lustria have come to the Southland. It was time to unite with their once separate kins and destroy their enemies along the way.

~ Somewhere In The Mountains ~

On an unnamed mountain; between the most extreme south of the Worlds Edge Mountains and the Southland's Great Mountains, a Dawi Hunter peered through his golden spyglass. He was in awe at what he saw.

Kroq-Gar has returned to these jungle lands.

"So it is true then." The hunter looked back to his fellow dwarf hunter. His solar gem necklace twinkled in the noon day sun. While shouldering his volcano stone axe. "The last Living Ancestor of Xhotl has returned to these jungles?"

"Yes Longbeard Brimstone. It is as the scriptures in the Sacred Plaques foretold." the hunter replied

"Then we must make haste to King Vulkan of their arrival and welcome them home." Brimstone Oldaxe sighed with wonderment. Eager to meet with the legendary Oldblood told to him by his father and his ancestors before him.

"If what the texts says are true then the hold must be made ready for the coming war" the hunter stated while packing his gear.

"Oh war is indeed coming my friend. One that we will not be forgettin and birth many sagas that will be sung over the finest brew."

Brimstone tightened his hold on his axe while stroking his beard at what will come.

AN: Sorry guys I meant to submit this on Friday but I have been deprived of a Wi-Fi because even after five days of complaints no one has yet to fix the disconnected LAN line! It is just frustrating.

Anyway, will try my best to update on a weekly basis and hopefully I will have my Wi-Fi back online. Fair warning, because I wanted to give you guys the next chapter this has not been properly proof-read and edited so expect some errors. Also possibly still subject to some edits once I get this back from my editor.

Comment, Critique and no flames please! Thank you!


	3. The Great Work of Karak Zorn Entry 1

Heirs of the Old Ones - THE GREAT WORK OF KARAK ZORN

First Entry by Magmar Fyrborne

It was a dark day for the clans of Karak Zorn.

The Slann of our eternal allies of Oxxaka has fallen.

A vile plague fell upon our scaled kin when we travelled there for our annual ceremony. Where we would partake in their wisdom. Teaching us their craft. Learn of the Old Ones and our place in the cosmos. My warriors and I could not have imagined the terror we were forced to endure when we saw what remained of our brothers-in-arms.

Skinks everywhere wilted like dying plants. While the mighty Saurus warriors sinew wasted away struggling to stand. But what hurt the most was seeing Quetzalan's Temple Guards who while the plague wracked them with a wasting sickness, they died standing some impaling themselves on their halberds or through sheer force where their body died before petrification set in.

While the plague's miasma was still in the air. The city's Force Field was still raised stopping from whatever is killing them from spreading.

We couldn't do anything to aid them...I felt helpless…

Before I knew it, a shield was erected around us when we heard a voice in our heads

"**Come..."**

It was Lord Quetzalan himself.

So we did as he asked. When we reached the pyramid, it was heartbreaking to see what's become of the wise one.

Lord Quetzalan was already a Relic Priest. He was already dead but his spirit still remained to aid us. A shield bubble formed around the mummified slann his remains untouched by the disease. Then he spoke to us. I can feel him slowly slipping away as he began to fade into slumber.

"**Use me...Take my temple...and my city...you are ready for the next step...claim that which will be yours. Do as Xohka...envisioned you...capable of..."**

Then his eyes faded and I was left with questions. Not before one last message was said before he it dimmed

"**I...will...see...you...again…"**

We didn't stay long to ponder we put his palanquin upon our shoulders and took him back with us to the hold. When we were far enough from the city we saw the shield fade and the plague spread now that it wasn't contained.

Our builders did what we could and built a shrine around the now Relic Priest Lord Quetzalan. As I sit here now, writing in the journal of my ancestors, did I take the time to think on the slann's final request.

We of the Dawi to use Lord Quetzalan? I did not understand. We know that great power still resides in him as he is still a slann but for what? As for his Temple… I understand that his Star Chamber floats closer to the skies as a means to connect with the heavens and the earth, but does he mean there is more to it than simply a floating citadel? As for his city...I dare not claim to be presumptuous but does he mean we are to inherit everything that resides in the Temple City?

The thought baffled me…

I am tired, my beard wilts and I can think on this later. For now we must arrange the means to cleanse the temple of the plague without damaging the relics. If were are to inherit their works then me must also dig deeper into their functions.

If there is one thing that Karak Zorn understands best is that we still have a ways to go before we can reach their level.

If not I then my children will.

Lord Quetzalan invoked the Old One Xohka. Old One of the Stone, Strength and Duty. Does that mean he foresaw us to build something?

If it is so…

Then by all who will come after me I decree with the Ancestor God Grungi as my witness this grand project that has been foretold by the Old One Xohka will thus be known as..

THE GREAT WORK OF KARAK ZORN

I don't know what the end design will be, nor do I feel I will be alive to see it, but this work will be carried out even by my descendants and we will see to it that when Quetzalan come back to us and when he looks upon our work, he will know that his faith in us and our friendship is as true as the stone.

Thus on this oath do I and my family swear.

AN: Just something to cleanse the mind after finishing the chapter yesterday. It's essentially something that I will be revealing far into the future unique only to Karak Zorn and nowhere else that even the Dwarves of Old World will even come close to comprehend.


	4. Chapter 2 - Follow the Path

AN: Thank you everyone again for the wonderful response and reviews, it really helps keep me motivated into writing this project of mine. Anyway while the side-story pretty much gave away the reveal of the Dwarf Hold's identity I am aware that some of you are worried that I might drastically alter them in a way that makes not at all the Warhammer Dwarves we all know. Well I want to put it to rest and say I have taken a lot of time to research them on what they can and cannot do. I fully aim to keep the spirit of the WH Dwarves in tact but make them so different from their race that the key word that I want to convey is 'alien'. So please be patient and remember that when it is eventually revealed its all about the journey and process of the reveal so that it won't feel like I just pulled it out of nowhere.

AN 2: To be honest it definitely felt like it was not my best but I am determined to come back here some time to iron it out to be better. Unedited for now so expect grammar mistakes and possibly some words I forgot to type in.

Thank you for your patience and hope you enjoy this next chapter.

EDIT: Finally cleaned up the worst of the grammar and added abit more substance along the way. Thank you for waiting!

Chapter 2: Follow the Path - OF THE PAST AND THE PRESENT

~Clan Mordkin Unnamed Undercity~

The Grey Seer of Clan Mordkin hung from his prized Screaming Bell with a mouthful of curses in his warpstone addled lungs. His mouth foamed, fixed in a crooked snarl, grimy facial fur raised and plaque encrusted teeth showing for all to see.

He was annoyed beyond comprehension by the dimwitted Rat Ogre ringing the warpstone clapper wholly oblivious to the musk of fear he was unconsciously secreting. He was lost amidst the anger coursing through his rodent brain. Plans that he has spent all his life scheming being unraveled by the incoming lizard intruder coming their way.

"Why-why?! What are scalies-lizard things doing here?!" He screeched out loud for everyone to hear. His dwinlding rationale unable to contain his thoughts.

'It didn't make sense-sense! Lizards of Zlatlan too far away from here! How did they know of skavens here! Or did they know? You just can never know with these lizard things!'

The pendulous sway of the bell echoed its haunting ring all throughout the Undercity. The song of the warpstone resonated into the minds of the Skaven. A construct of that should empower even the most craven of slaves.

Fear however still remained dominant. Fear held a tight iron fist gripped into the hearts and minds of the Skaven on every hierarchy. It was not just the Grey Seer who leaked the literal stench of fear into the air. The innate animal instinct of the skaven felt the presence of the predator that was upon them. It screamed at them, penetrated them, of the terror coming for them on their furry hides.

'No no no. Lizards especially hate skavenkind! Would take any chance to see them kill - smite us.'

Such was the enormity of the coming threat their screaming instincts drove dizzying terror even into the hardened clanrat warriors. Their armor rattled like chimes, their spear and sword arms trembled by the roaring bellow of whatever presence this mighty lizard exuded.

'Timing is too suspect! Yes-yes!' They were so close to reach and raid the so-called legendary hold of the stunties Karak Zorn. There was also a strange stench in the air with these lizards. 'A lizard here has old smell. Very very old smell!'

'These are not Zlatlan lizards! They come from somewhere else!'

So the question remained that pulsated loudly in his aggravated brain.

'Where did these lizards come from?!'

All the years of his precious work the ambitious Grey Seer from Skavenblight might soon be in flames!

Usurping his former master and claiming his slaves. Mounds of precious warpstone traded with the Great Clan of Skyre and Moulder for resources. Scores of skaven he personally threatened and blackmailed into serving him for his expedition, possibly on the brink!

All of it wasted and destroyed unless he can stop them here!

The vibrations coming from the tunnel gate was getting stronger. It was a huge-big horde.

A roar echoed from the dimness of the elevated tunnel. Long, loud and very deep. He knew that sound.

'It came from one of the bigger scaly things! The scaly beasts that like to chew on Rat Ogres for fun!'

"We-we're going to die-die!"

"Run away! Yes-Yes! We should run! Yes! Kill Grey Seer so that we can run!"

The Grey Seer gnarled his yellow plaque filled teeth, arterial veins bulging at the gutless slaves for even thinking about it. In his earshot no less!

Before the pack of Skaven slaves could even attempt to follow through on their treachery, he whispered a silent incantation to pass his through lips, channeling ruinous magic from the Bell. He launched a surging bolt of warp lightning from his staff. Leaping from its warpstone carved tip to the pack that were actually stupid enough to speak of their mutiny where he can hear them!

Fell energy struck the sniveling would-be traitors in a blinding green flash. The bolt engulfed the skavens responsible in an explosion of ionized chaos-tainted sparks and balefire. The blast zone of the warp lightning showed their mutilated corpses and everyone close to the explosion sundered into boiling meat and rendered fat.

Any thoughts of running went as quiet as the dead, with the crispy crackling corpse turned bonfire now in their midst as proof of what will happen if they were brave enough to follow them.

"Useless weakling broods!" The Grey growled out his frustration. Try as he might to control his cocktail blend of panic and rage, the musk of fear overpowered the musk of bravery secretions. Not even the Screaming Bell he was proud to finally own was working in the face of the coming terror!

The Screaming Bell were supposed to rouse the skavens into being in a throe frenzied courage and fearlessness in its presence while striking a crippling sense of dreaded fear into the enemies of the Great Horned Rat.

Not the Lizardmen...

Never the Lizardmen!

IT IS ALWAYS NEVER THE LIZARDMEN!

They know no fear! They are the only beings in the world the skaven can never influence. There is a reason why all of skavendom see the Lizardmen as their nemesis. Men can be manipulated easily. Elves can can be tricked if clever enough. Dwarfs can be broken into slaves. Orks can be bargained and directed. There is no one the skaven have not manipulated or influenced to their tune.

Except the Lizardem...

There was no compromising with them. Once you make an enemy of the Lizardmen and oppose their Great Plan.

There is no stopping. There is only death for those who have wronged them. They will chase them relentlessly until every rat in their vicinity were slain or fed as sacrifices to their Serpent God!

ROOOOAARRRR!

The raging roar of a Carnosaur on the hunt. A sound no one skaven wants to be near.

Terror silenced the skavens on every street and tower. A terrifying chilling wind blew across the streets of their Under-City. Cold spikes running up the hairy spine of every skaven in the subterranean city.

Skaven slaves shivered with fright, their minds affray and many exceptionally weak willed rats defecated standing in their place. The acrid smell of their own discharged urination and fecal matter were numbed by the pressuring fear of an alpha predator coming towards them. Fearing for the preservation of their own lives rather than staying for the promised treasures the Grey Seers claim would make them the envy of many. Everyone prepared a plan in their minds to bolt, to flee the moment presented itself. Such was the dismal life they lead they knew better than to believe in the lies of the Grey Seer. They knew their master wants nothing more than to see them dead.

The less of there are of them and the Clanrats, the more he can claim greater spoils.

As for the Clanrats; Hardened and tougher than mere slaves as they are, like any warmblood mammal, they too succumb to the overwhelming emotional state of primal fear. As a skaven, it only magnified their already innately cowardly nature as their race was known for.

Terrified as the slaves are they have long accepted their deaths in their meaningless existence, where they would be free of the cruel painful reality and sleep in the comforting darkness of oblivion. Clanrats are different, for the have one thing that seperates them as warriors to the wretches. They have ambition. A vision. Life goals to strive towards. These are the rats who see the value in their own lives and would do anything to ensure that theirs outlive their so-called comrades. It is this, that makes them the dangerous servants of their rat masters. As being the superior to the lowly disposable slaves.

Yet it is also because of this ambition, that makes them a volatile lot that leads to their self-destruction. For its when things turn for the worse, each Clanrat is forced to worry about the enemy in front of him, as much as the hidden dagger from his once so-called comrade at his exposed vulnerable back.

Reduced to maddened raving beasts as the Rat Ogres were, even in their most base instincts, they could feel the overwhelming presence of an apex predator coming towards them. Shadows of their former selves -abused slaves and test subjects- resurfaced from their bestial mania and recoiled.

Something was coming after them. Someone very strong. Strong-powerful lizard thing. They can smell the teeming horde of the lizard-thing's alpha carried with him. The zeal. The anger. Their unfettered hatred toward their rat kin. It was overbearing. Yet something old carried on the lizard alpha. This lizardman has lived a long life…

The thumping of reptilian claws grew closer and closer…

Scraping at the dirt. With the sound of their hissing tongues singing in the tunnel.

The rats manning the sentry towers tried to keep a steady hold when the marching grew stronger. Warpstone bombs at the ready to fire on the lizards, with slaves choking the battlements with rock slingers to supplement the firepower.

Their stronghold paled to a proper skaven undercity defense scenario, but this was the price they had to pay for this expedition. Resources were primarily spent into seeking out the mythical hold of the stunties for years; Equipment and ratman power were all dedicated in seeking the hold an minimize their fighting force.

Small harassment attacks on the lizards in Zlatalan provided a sufficient smokescreen to mask their operations. Year after year in searching for the hold, the Grey Seer and his questionably trusted aides were more convinced of the hold's location being a place fact and not fiction or fables.

All in due part from stolen lizard loot all across the Southland. Every decade or so at least one trinket would stand out among the other familiar valuables of the lizards that clue in on the mysterious hold's existence.

Only three of such loot were enough to convince the Grey Seer and his thirteen 'trusted' retinue that whatever they were looking for was real. All locked away in a chest the Grey Seer keeps selfishly hidden away from prying eyes.

The marching stopped and everyone's muscles tensed. Weapons at the ready for the inevitable conflict.

The air was thick with the rat's fear musk secretions and the exuding pressure of the opponent. The slaves on the battlements peered into the darkness, their curiosity of at least wanting to know their soon to be killer at the forefront of their minds.

A steam of exhaled breath could be seen and heard across the field. Four points of light reflected off at something in the darkness.

They were eyes the realized. Eyes that shined like the purest of gold.

Twin pairs of those golden orbs reflected back at them from the darkness of the tunnel. A flaring shade of avenging light caught from within its ocular organs from the undercity's overhanging warpstone torches revealed to the skaven an infernal searing rage.

It was a bottomless rage that had no equal, within the golden gaze of no doubt a saurus leader, it spoke to them entire chronicles of his life that would fill libraries with his possibly many tales of woe and vengeance.

The Carnosaur of a brilliant red, stepped forward. Immediately something was terribly wrong.

The slowly illuminated snout and head of the hunter lizard beast had bright coppery red scales that reflected light like polished steel. Its luster was an indicative sign of the beast's age; its magnificent hue of red meant that this was no youngling carnivore, but one that has experienced many things in its long hundreds or maybe a thousand year life.

Whoever this warrior was, he was someone of high standing and that this Carnosaur must be somewhat close in age to its rider.

The red Carnosaur took one step then two. Its head already in the light for all to see, slowly revealing its segmented scaled hide out of the tunnel. Time moved unbearably slow for the skaven, the psychological warfare on the lizard's part working in its favor.

A single golden horn on its snout was the first to shine, revealing a crested head of bright blue scales with red ceremonial markings beautifully decorated upon his brow and skull plate. Further exposure revealed his crest was adorned with many golden ornaments. Easily identifying some saurus of import. They noticed now when he began to fully come into form he had four golden horns not thre-

The rest of his body came into the light…and then they knew exactly who THIS lizard was.

The Grey Seer. His thirteen retinues. And the Clanrats. Looked on at the lizardman in dread horror. Aghast to finally see the identity of their interloper. So pallid were they in the depths of their terror some rats' fur went completely white as the driven snow.

The slaves saw their superior's reaction and it only further devastated their already feeble morale. Not educated to be anything more above their station, they were blissfully ignorant of the knowledge. Sparing the ensuing realization the full magnitude of the danger the enemy in front of them represented.

A hand of gold inscribed with sacred runes blessed and forged in the language of their lizard gods. Where stories from skaven scribes spoke of a lizard who can render countless skavens into dust by the light within his palm, that shone like the unforgiving glare of a sun.

While in his right hand, a relic weapon of unknown make and origin to even the most scholarly skaven. The alien design of the spear defies all logic. Two orbs sat suspended in the base of the head without anything to support them in its place. These weapons were unmistakable to all of skavendom, for their notoriety is matched only by the legendary lizard wielding them.

The greatest of skaven champions of today seek out this scaled lord of war in one fashion or another, for only they were crazy enough, bold enough, or a demented mixture of both; Ikkit Claw in his quest to craft only the most dangerous of weapons wants the warrior's hand for the chance to take it apart and advance his creations. While Queek Headtaker longs to seek his head as the crowning jewel of his trophy rack even across a continent away. And Skrolk obsessively has a hard time picking him or Tehenhauin as number one on his lizard kill list.

All skavens know this one Saurus's name… he who holds the sun in his hand and he who wields the impossible spear.

His name is Kroq-Gar.

He is the lizardman to end all lizardmen. Where he strides, there is only the destruction of whoever woefully earned his attention.

This was no mere mission of culling their numbers or intercepting to disrupt their operations.

This was an extermination!

The Lizardman of Xhotl raised his spear while the Ancient Carnosaur took a breath.

Here and now for all the skavens of Clan Mordkin present of the undercity to see. Rider and beast roared their knell of war! Their fury was like thunder! Its echo shook the earth! His presence alone silenced the Screaming Bell!

He is by the will of the Old Ones; The Last Defender!

ROAAAAARRRRRRR!

~Undercity Surface Access Tunnel Entrance~

Kroq-Gar stood thrusted his spear forward, towards the gate, and his army followed.

He and Grymloq ran full speed. The Ancient Carnosaur intent on taking it down on the first strike. He and the twenty Saurus of Mazdamundi's Honor Guards charged into the field of battle. His army spilling out into the clearing, a sea of raging lizard fury!

Grymloq kept his sights locked onto the gate. That is his sole and primary focus. Committed in its destruction where its not a matter of if he can reach it, but in the predator's eyes the reality hasn't caught up to the fact.

The lizardmen of Hexoatl poured from the entrance in accordance to the planned battle formation set by the Oldblood.

All present Kroxigor Cohorts flanked to his sides, their purpose in the battle were two-fold in the Last Defender's operation; to shield and siege.

With their size and bulk the kroxigors will serve as a cover screen for the Saurus Warriors intermingled in their mix. Incoming projectiles will be intercepted to reduce any loss for the Saurus Warriors. They will be the primary line of defense in order for the Saurus Warriors to scale the wooden walls. Attacking the battlement defenders and disrupting the tower from further barrages.

If the battle should favor them and able to weather against whatever the deadly volley with their numbers remaining significantly sufficient, the remaining Kroxigors will beat down on the walls and break through them. Taking down the battlements entirely at the possible best or punching a hole where their forces can pour through at the least.

Sure enough, while the undercity falls short of a proper stronghold, their towers numbered no more than two, hurtled their deadly payload towards their incoming position. Warpstone charged bombs were hurtled in a parabolic arc. Deadly armaments, slow but with very large blast radius.

How odd…

The arc flew over the Kroxigor and Saurus contingent heading straight to the larger mass of Skinks and what few salamanders and razordons followed at the rear. Teenee's and the other cohorts saw the incoming barrage being thrown their way and dispersed their numbers to minimize their losses. Now instead of organized ranks of skinks it was simply a singular gigantic scattered mass following the charge.

The first of the bombs detonated within their dispersed ranks. Its deadly payload discharged explosions of bale fire and warp lightning. Everyone but the rearmost skinks managed to evade the first of the coming barrage, while those caught in the blast were still far enough to evade the worst with naught but singed flesh and cooking meat inflammation. Their injury was significant, but the raging Skinks still ran at full speed. The pain only causing them to drive them deeper into a rage anesthetizing the pain.

The next few barrages however took more toll as the skavens readjusted their targeting arcs and increased the rate of their barrage. Skinks that were crowded together from the subsequent explosions were forced to take the brunt of the wicked ordnance. Many of their spawn brother perished, though minimized by their dispersal the loss of one skink remained a loss they took very seriously. Knowing that if they take out the Skink numbers, there is a chance they could overwhelm the lizard army.

Even if they already know their downfall was all but imminent.

The contingency of Kroq-Gar, Saurus and Kroxigors were nearing the gate, signaled by the hail of stones being pelted in their general direction. The stones were more than negligible as their hides provided better protection than even warmblood metal armor.

The real danger though lies in the deception, where every now and then within the hail of pelted rocks accursed grenades of contagion or warpstone lightning would hide among the rain of thrown stones to mask their construct making it difficult to ascertain their trajectory amidst the chaotic shower.

Of which were strangely absent…

Something was not right; payload unsuitable for a proper tower defense, lack of hand held explosive devices. The rats were up to something.

The gate was fast approaching. He needs to be in the present.

Kroq-gar filled away the strange blessing of the under armed defenses and focused on the now. He has rats to kill.

Grymloq adjusted his center mass and clenched his claws. When he reached crashing distance, twelve tons of primal fury threw his weight against the hated rat fiend's barrier. The moment both feet left the ground, he became a giant missile of scales and teeth.

The barricade never stood a chance.

The Clanrat halberdiers standing behind the gate expected to mob the lizard chieftain and keep him suppressed. Killing both beast and rider through sheer numbers, drowning them in rats and maybe by some miracle, kill the legend once and for all.

That miracle came crashing down on them in torrential chunks of lumber and flying bits of shrapnel.

Grymloq's sheer size, speed and weight. Were all it needed to not only breakthrough the gate itself, but utterly decimated the gateway itself. The impact of Grymloq's collision held so much force it shook every building in the undercity. The worst affected by the attack being the slaves on the towers and battlements. Toppling over each other unbalanced and lost their footing. The Carnosaur's seismic impact rippled and traveled across the entire wall causing the those on top to fall from where they were standing on.

Lucky ones managed to fall behind the wall where aside from some broken bones -while an unfortunate few died from falling on their skulls - some managed to get back up and ran into a safer position.

While the unlucky ones who fell at front, had the unfortunate courtesy of cushioning the full line charge of angry Kroxigor shoulder tackles!

Spanning from one tower to the next, the sensation of their teeth skull being crushed beneath the hammer that is the Kroxigors to the anvil that is the wall that was supposed to protect them.

The dead skavens would never know that the anvil also broke against the hammer.

If Grymloq's demolition of the gate was akin to a gigantic fast moving cannonball, then the Kroxigor cohort's unified charge was comparable to a natural disaster! The already weakened wall and the skavens who were able to hold on to the ledges all fell down in a crescendo of piling rubble.

Skavens manning the tower lost all common sense of self-preservation with the chain reaction caused by the 'obviously' crazy Kroxigors shattering the tower foundations built into the walls. The rats in a desperate attempt to escape leaped from the posts high above the ground that guarantees certain death with only a small chance of survival but at the price of disabling themselves.

Living was the only thing that dominated their minds, jumping ship the moment their once boring posts started tilting into the rising cloud of debris before they themselves disappeared entirely within the fog of dust.

The chaotic cacophony of the overwhelming destruction of their only defensive structure mesmerized the remaining skavens. Skaven eyes could not look away from the monumental cloud of dust spreading around the site of destruction. Here in the cavern of the undercity where dust and debris is the norm when working in these tunnels. Be it dead skin cells, dust mites or the ground, the undercity is always caked in layers of dust and dirt.

The Grey Seer cursed beneath at the site of destruction no doubt the collateral damage of slaves and Clanrats there must have died by now either by the fall or by lizard hands. His breath came in rapid fire bursts, whiffing on whatever stray particles of warpdust that came his way, waiting to see what happens next. With a spell readied on his staff so that he can cook the so-called legend of the lizards.

Everything seemed still, trapped within the moment. Longer to some, shorter for others. Twitchy Clanrats who resided nearer to the Undercity center kept themselves alert. Waiting for whatever comes out of the cloud. While some of the stupid and lax rats delude themselves thinking that perhaps the lizards destroyed themselves in the ensuing destruction.

One such stupid rat, reached to very edge of the cloud, while the smarter slaves slowly backed away the closer the debris cloud got nearer.

Sniffing around for any sense of life. He dared to move closer and squinted his eyes blinking away forming tears from the sting of the floating dust particles. He tried to keep his eyes peeled through the granulated haze, but the irritation from the dust cloud became overbearing and took a hand off his weapon in need to rub the dust out.

His soon to be killer saw his prey.

Heightened reptilian senses homes in on his kill. His posture stood steady like a rooted tree, his throwing arm coiled back like a viper ready to strike. He sees the kill and envisioned his prey's death and those who they call their tainted backstabbing cowardly kind kin.

He seized the moment. With a shout that caused the rats to jump from the sound, he hurled his halberd! Strong and true!

A black and gold blur, burst open from the cloud and the stupid skaven was run right through! The weapon continued flying, its momentum still strong carried its first kill into the adjacent skavens behind him. The halberd impaled a second, then a third, and only until it hits its fourth mark did the weapon finally stopped. All four skavens twitched from the shock, impaled like being on a spit over a roasting fire. The first one locked in a dazed stupor seeing his decimated arm missing from his body before the light in his eyes faded.

All around them the slaves and Clanrats felt a gaping pit in their stomach. They then made one mistake following the four deaths from just one throw.

They turned back.

Time slowed down, the Skaven mind raced in panic.

In the time it took to register of the first visible dead, a wave of lizards stormed out of the cover of the cloud, leaping at them from above.

Emerging from the dust cloud. The image forever seared into their retinas. The Lizardmen. So many lizardmen. The gradually thinning cloud of dust and the ruined wall revealed to them the savage untainted raw fury of their cold-blooded nemesis.

Kroq-Gar standing from his saddle urging Grymloq to head right for the Grey Seer, barreled through the broken slave and Clanrat formations. Crushing or scattering them underfoot. While the Saurus elite Temple Guards trailed after the Oldblood carving out of Skaven rugs in their path. Saurus and Kroxigors emerged not long after them ready to trample them underneath their towering reptilian weight. With some of them holding dead skaven in their mouths to complete the image.

It was a thing of beauty the slaves thought. Their sense of purpose shined so clear. So pure. There is no deceit, no perversity, no scheming for the Lizardmen. Only a clear and just goal in seeing their enemy destroyed and cleanse the world of their wretched kind.

It was a profound moment of epiphany for many of the slaves who knew their fates would never be anything more than living in their miserable existence of abuse and squalor. Many became deaf to the ringing sound of the Screaming Bell or the expletive threats of the Grey Seer, they no longer feared death. Their cowardice coming full circle into acceptance and ready to embrace their destruction at the might of the lizards.

Tar-Kus not caring one whit why the skaven slaves dropped their weapons or their collective epiphany brained the closest one he got his hand and crushed it like an overripe fruit. Tossing aside the dead filth and moved to retrieve his halberd still impaled in midst of the skaven line.

Time resumed for the Clanrats the moment the tide of giant lizards collided their defensive line in a booming thunder of bodies and rent armor. Clanrats and slaves were sent flying everywhere from the superior strength of the Saurus Warriors and the Kroxigors.

Such was the case for Tar-Kus who broke from his ranks, forward flipped towards the skaven cohort that surrounded his halberd. His jump caused the skaven warriors to scatter and vacated a circle where the Saurus landed. The Hexoatl Honor Guard landed on all fours, enhancing the ferocity of his bestial image.

Clanrats stepped back in caution to avoid the bronze mace head tipped at his tail. Before they recovered their wits and go on the attack. Tar-kus was surrounded on all sides and the circle was closing in on him. All the more easier to kill them. He grabbed his halberd near the but end of the shaft and with a deft leveraging of his wrist, the four dead still impaled skavens were cut away floating temporarily in mid air.

Faster than the skaven eye could comprehend, Tar-kus spun his weapon and body in an dance of death. So strong and skilled was his martial prowess, every swing of his halberd pulverized and cleaved three to four skavens in its path, while the mace head ensured that getting in close made it difficult to reach the Honor Guard's sphere of melee. Each rotation of his spin perforated flesh into messy gore or their bodies bludgeoned with every flick of the mace head on his tail.

More lizards poured out of the dust cloud, when the last Kroxigor vaulted over the rubble of the wall with the squelching sound of rat meat in their lumbering steps, the skinks and their hunting packs started spreading themselves throughout the under-city. Teenee-Tymm leading his great weapon cohorts looking to find the larger concentration of Skavens to sacrifice to Sotek.

The plan worked far beyond what Kroq-Gar initially devised. What was supposed to be them currently undergoing the siege phase of the battle was resolved in an instant. This was not what the Oldblood had expected, in the Oldblood ancient's experience even the most fresh settlement should have made the walls and towers built competently. This was certainly no fresh settlement and the Skaven here has occupied this land for some time. Something did not add up.

Kroq-Gar thoughts were interrupted when he smelled the tainted charge of ruination in the air. He raised the Hand of the Gods as a conduction point and the storm of warp lightning was redirected and absorbed into his hand. He scoffed contemptuosly at the detestable Grey Seer swinging on the cursed bell of their rat god. His staff smoking from the recent discharge of warp lightning.

"Why-why is lizard doing here-here?" the Grey Seer screeched across the mainroad to the undercity center. Clanrats being pushed back and rolled over under the weight of Saurus and Kroxigors while the Skinks and the hunting packs picked off stragglers and collapse the skaven's escape routes.

"What-what is your looking-seek? Treasure-Loot? Your after prize-claim! Yes yes yes! That must be it, you scaly-thing looking for legendary-valuable treasure! You won't take it! It's mine-mine! No one can take it! Karak Zorn treasure is mine! Great Horned Rat himself said so!"

Kroq-Gar did not even deign to give a rebuttal his breath too valuable to be wasted on dead Skaven. He pushed Grymloq, urging him to head straight for the Screaming Bell. Ignoring the mewling wail of the Grey Seer. The Carnosaur did as told and ran full speed towards the contraption of wood and metal eager to silence the noise that only made him angrier the longer he heard it. He wanted to smash it!

The Grey Seer met his challenge and the slaves manning the mechanisms pedaled the war altar straight at the monster, their only hope for survival being to impale the beast on the Screaming Bell's ramming spikes.

That hope lied in the assumption that the beast was dumb enough to allow himself to be impaled on the war altar's charging spikes.

Grymloq picked up speed, ignoring the rat things he squashed underfoot trying to stop him. The altar doing the same to its own allies, running over them beneath its wagon wheels.

Ancient predator beast from the dawn of the world charged against arcane instrument of worship to the ratmen's dark god.

The Grey Seer fired searing bolts of warp lightning to the Oldblood. Trapped within his delusion to killing the lizardman in front of him. Seeing himself triumphant at the possible wealth and glory for killing the lizardman when no one else could.

Kroq-Gar nonchalantly raised his hand toward the sickly green bolts. The shimmering aura emitted from the palm enveloped him and Grymloq, dispersing the ruination magic of the Grey Seer's warp bolts.

The sound of rats crunching and turned to mucl under the lizard's assault resonated throughout their surroundings.

Tar-Kus at the rear leading the rest of the Temple Guards to follow the Oldblood's advance and thinning the Skaven ranks to keep off Kroq-Gar's duel from being interrupted. The twenty Saurus guardians cutting a swathe of charnel destruction in their wake ahead of the rapidly moving lizardmen avalanche.

A pack of the Rat Ogre beasts tried to slam into Carnosaur to stop its charge against their master. Tar-Kus and half his brothers saw the incoming hulks and broke away. The Rat Ogres seeing the closest prey coming to, swung a meaty paw and clawed at the puny scaly thing.

The Temple Guard answered its strike by nimbly jumping over it the claw, and with an elegant stroke that flowed like water, his halberd parted the Rat Ogre's head from its body. It clumsily fumbled about, its body coming to realization that it no longer had a head before falling dead as blood and liquid warpstone gushed out from its opened wound. It quickly became a pitiful spectacle where the fierce and deadly rat beasts were systematically being slain by his brothers with little effort.

The Grey Seer snarled at Rat Ogre's failure not even able to slow him down. What infuriated him more than their failure though, was the lizardman's disinterest in him as a foe. His madness clouded his judgement and his anger broke through the haze of fear and yelling at the slaves to pedal faster.

Grymloq saw this and matched the increase in speed, the distance was closing in faster and it would not be long before he crashes into the Bell. Grymloq however was not worried, for it was capable of the one thing that would bring the war altar's downfall.

Jumping.

Grymloq planted both feet into the ground and launched himself a second time that day, throwing his weight this time, at an incoming object.

The Grey Seer's jaw dropped in gobsmack shock, his heart sank into his stomach like a stone now realizing the colossal stupidity of his mistake by challenging the lizardman on his bipedal beast against a land bound vehicle. The Carnosaur leaping clear of the spikes and the shadow of a large mass of copper red scales coming on top of him…

Grymloq land squarely on the bell briefly feeling a wet sensation beneath his neck and chest. The Carnosaur's steely claws ripped into the bell's metal and held a tight grip. The entire war altar creaked and groaned like a moaning death wail as it was lifted off the ground flying back to the center. Screws and nails popped out their supports and wood splintering from the strain of the collision threatening to tear the altar from the wagon, as the entire mobile structure was being flipped on its back. The crew in a blinding panic at the feeling of weightlessness before being inevitably crushed inside.

The two objects landed back on the ground bell first. The war altar skidding dangerously across the rocky ground by Grymloq's momentum and the beast riding on it in a meaty grind with the bell ringer Rat Ogre pinned beneath the cursed instrument.

Dragged along the ground the wagon split off from the bell frame no longer able to keep itself together and sent it tumbling over and under into heaping wreck. Their skidding eventually came to a stop back into the center of the Under-City.

Kroq-Gar took a grim sense of satisfaction at the destruction of their blightful instrument. Fortunate that he didn't have to waste his valuable time on dealing with the Grey Seer personally. Grymloq looked at what remained of the Rat Ogre that was supposed to be beneath the bell and was unfortunate to find it all but ground into a smeary paste.

Throwing the loss of a quick meal aside, Grymloq started tearing into the wretched bell. Its stench and noise still a constant source of aggravation. With both teeth and claws from his arms and legs, he started shredding chunks out of the bell into little tiny pieces.

Kroq-Gar leapt down from his saddle throne and inspected Grymloq's underside. Certainly enough, he saw the flattened splatter remains of the Grey Seer who challenged him. His head and body was remarkably still in one piece albeit with bits of its brain exposed to the elements out of his shattered cranium, his body broken in its entirety into a ragged mess.

Miraculously despite the Grey Seer being flattened with both his horns shattered, it was still breathing. Which will suit what he was about to do perfectly well.

He grabbed the still living Grey Seer and held it aloft for all to see...both to the Skaven and the Lizardmen. The former to demoralize and send the cowards running in all directions to be intercepted by the skink braves. While invigorating the latter for his brethren to rally onwards.

He willed power into the Hand of the Gods. Its light shining so bright it illuminated through the Grey Seer's head before a blinding flash enveloped the entire Undercity! When the Skaven opened their eyes, all that was left of their Grey Seer was naught but ashen dust that blew in the wind of battle through the Kroq-Gar's clenched golden claws.

Screaming rats raved throughout the settlement, its inhabitants lost into a blind panic at the loss of their master.

They scattered. The unammed and only under-city of Clan Mordkin has fallen. Ending the Skavens here in the Cursed Jungle. Where it will be allowed to heal and coax back life into the sacred ground.

Seeing the ensuing madness of Skavens' fleeing chaotically, none were brave enough to approach him. Afraid of the retribution he would inflict upon them. The battle was finished and all that's left is to demolish every brick in this city, purge it in cleansing fire and bury it all.

He settled on standing in place next to Grymloq while he continued to crush both the bell and the warpstone clapper. While Mazdamundi's Honor Guard encircled him facing out to protect his person.

Now that he is allowed to think a question formed in his head that caught his intrigue during the Grey Seer's tirade.

'What did the Grey Seer talked about regarding the dwarf hold of Karak Zorn?'

~The Grey Seer's Personal Den~

A maul bashed open a loose wall in the Grey Seer's sleeping quarters. Teenee reared back and hammered away to widen the hole that revealed a concealed nook behind the now dead Grey Seer's bed.

Inside the hidden alcove was a large long chest. Weathered throughout the years but relatively sturdy and big enough to fit plenty of treasures, or a significantly equally large object.

"Is this chest the one you were seeking wise Oracle Priest?" Teenee asked, shaking off dust of masonry from the wall his maul bashed open.

The Oracle peered closer, through Vertabrik's superior senses he indeed found the oddity he was looking for.

"Indeed. This is the one we seek." Oku-Los answered the red-crested Skink Brave. Teenee shouldered the maul while he gripped the side-handle of the chest to pull it out of its hiding place.

Even without the Troglodon's enhanced senses at this range Oku-Los could smell it as well. He stepped back to gesture the brave to break the lock.

"What does your senses speak to you wise one?" Tenne asked again taking careful measured hits on the padlock careful not to damage whatever the contents the priest was seeking.

"Lost objects...of the Lizardmen" Oku-Los sniffed the air "They are weeping. Wanting to be returned to their owners. I sense the smell of dwarfs upon them."

Teenee snorted in derision.

"Mountain dweller thieves then. Seeking gold or jewels no doubt of our sacred artifacts."

His disdain for such disrespect of what does not belong to them, oozed out of his mouth and the flare of his fin quivering in displeasure. Putting more strength into his maul slowly breaking the padlock, now that the jingle of shattered interior pieces of the lock were giving away under his repeated assault.

Surprisingly Oku-Los shook his head.

"No. I smell no scent of greed upon these sacred objects" He sniffed the air and dove deeper to sync with the Troglodon's senses. "I smell the scent of them longing to be returned, but not to us brave Teenee but to their Dawi masters. Lizard objects...but of Dawi craftsmanship."

Teenee actually paused in surprise at the revelation. Perplexed at such an oddity. Before hitting the padlock one last time, shattering it and the latch keeping it closed. He did not move to open it as he kept a pointed interest in what the Oracle Priest is about say next.

"The scent is very old. Old and faint" Oku-Los moved to the front of the chest kneeling next to the skink brave and lifted open the lid.

He was greeted with top layer of cushions of a peculiar fabric. He glided his fingers over the material and confirmed it is made entirely of human hair. No doubt stolen to keep the contents protected from jostling and outside impact.

"Our answers lie inside. Now help me."Oku-Los carefully picked up the individual cushions one by one. Cautious in the event to prevent something fragile become snagged or damaged in the search.

"As you wish wise one."

Teenee did the same and kneeled next to the Oracle Priest following his example.

As more cushions were discarded, something metallic brushed against Teenee's fingers. He looked to the Oracle Priest seeking permission. Oku-Los nodded to the warrior. He gently grasped at the strip of metal and both of them looked at the object.

Curiosity stirred between the two skinks. It was a golden talisman. Yet inscribed within the gold was a mural of Sotek carved within its metal. Oku-Los sniffed at it and confirmed his suspicion that it did not reek of being used as an avaricial ornament or the greed of currency. There is a scent of power coursing through this golden talisman of Sotek.

"It is yours for the time being Teenee-Tymm until we converse with the dwarf owner of this talisman"

Teenee lowered his crest to the Oracle Priest joy flowing through his veins of being given such an honor. The skink pocketed away the talisman and resumed the dig.

The next item, was found by Oku-Los. He could feel something that had bone and was covered in gold. He gently tugged it from the mound, shaking off the residual hair from the cushions. Both skinks marveled at the find.

It was armor. Though from the way the straps and fasteners were arranged, it is meant to be fitted on one's shoulder. It was a wonderful work of craftsmanship and care that skink artisans would praise. The 'pauldron' was in fact a bleached skull head of a Temple Guard. An honor among their ranks to wear a piece of their predecessors to their successors.

The head was beautifully ornamented in both design and lethality. Its horns were coated in armor of brass with magically charged gold ringed at the base of the crest, the jaw was fitted with a second 'outer jaw' made of obsidian lined with gold teeth to provide additional protection and a bludgeon tool for a shoulder bash. Lastly in the center of the crest was a marking of a Saurus skull over an anvil. The insignia of the dwarf clan' anvil glowed with magic familiar to no other race but their own.

This added confusion but also awe as this was their first time encountering a possible dwarf hold that respects and honors their ways. The ways of the Old Ones.

Both skinks set aside the shoulder armor for now and with the amount of cushions left in the chest, they forego caution and started throwing them recklessly all over the room. There could only be one thing left in the chest that deserved to fit in such a large container. First a talisman that held Sotek's icon and then armor that gave tribute and honor to a fallen Temple Guard. Both shared the same train of thought of what the last object held inside the chest would be.

A weapon.

Both Oku-Los and Teenee threw the last cushion, when they looked inside to see the main prize of the hidden chest that lie within.

There it was.

Laid upon the padded cushions, was an axe. This was no ordinary axe of mundane construction like a hunk of sharpened steel. This axe was a masterwork of design that can match the very best masters of skink artisans.

Oku-Los urged Teenee to lift it from its confines for a proper inspection. The Skink Brave set aside his maul, and laid the marvel of a weapon upon his knees for the Oracle to see.

It was a pitch as black as night, but when it reflected against what little light surrounded them, it glittered like the night stars in the cosmic sky. Its killing edge was smoothed to such a sharpness, that it warped eyesight and just looking at the blade feels like they are being cut by it. At the center of the axe's twin heads a familiar gem was embedded in the haft. Though it was dim from the lack of sunlight, both skinks knows that the gem not a decorative piece of jewelry but a miniaturized solar engine. Small as it was, it pales to the full might of a true solar engine carried by the bastiladon, but to a man sized target its shot would still cause grievous harm. Oku-Los looked into the axe's eye and true to his findings, the eye of the axe was a hollowed structure with rings and prongs that is attached to the solar engine at its core.

This was both a melee weapon and a ranged weapon.

'One last inspection' thought the Oracle Priest.

He laid his hands upon the handle and channeled his essence.

Power was restored. Oku-Los gasped in surprise. He could feel it, the weapon responded to him as a Skink Priest. As kin despite the design saying otherwise its a dwarfen weapon. He looked to Teenee to share in his awe only to stop as the Skink brave was stunned by something else. Oku-Los followed shortly his fellow skink's stunned awe.

Their awe had a well deserved reasoning.

The once pitch black face of the axe shined its light in a pattern similar to their own. The currents that flowed through it formed a face. Shaped by its lights. Molded by the currents. It bore a likeness that should not be present on a weapon that is supposed to belong to the Dwarfs.

It was the face of an Old One.

The Old One Xohka; the Lizardmen God of the stone, the spirit who gives strength, and bearer of the title as, Arbiter of Duty.

Only one thing crossed both their minds.

Where are these Dwarves now?

AN: Hey there guys sorry about the delay RL stuff got me pretty tired. The chapter is supposed to be longer but I had to make a lot of changes to my original outline so it sort of messed up along the way.

Thank you for your patience and I hope you enjoy it all the same. Again looking for editors as my own editor and friend is swamped and I think he would appreciate the help with my mines and his own projects.

Comment, Critique and no flames please!


	5. The Great Work of Karak Zorn Entry 44

AN: Hi everyone, another journal entry by Magmar Fyrborne. This one deals in the aftermath of the plague and after enshrining the Relic Priest. Here we dive deeper into the intricate mechanics of Lizardmen structure and how the Karak Zorn Dwarfs deals and eventually adopts Lizardmen construction into their livelihood.

Heirs of the Old Ones - THE GREAT WORK OF KARAK ZORN

Entry Forty Four by Magmar Fyrborne

At last. After a month of laborious work that could fill a lake with our sweat and shed tears. We have finally managed to clean what scum we could scrub away after waiting for the sun to kill the plague.

It took time and it was a struggle to build an entire new set of armor designed to seal ourselves in and keep us contained from the plague that persisted to linger in deeper sections of the temple.

But we managed all the same.

By the Ancestor Gods those things were uncomfortable to wear!

They chafed and it was difficult to even hold anything in those stubby gloves. Yet there is potential with those suits. Who knows when we might have need of them. Grungi would frown on us for simply discarding them.

Oh great and wise Lady Valaya… look upon the structure these lizards created.

Even when emptied of its inhabitants and it should outright feel to have an air of a curse lingering, there is a majesty that persists within the stone.

Its as if the city itself remained alive and strong, even after such a plague falling on its people.

Which is suspicion to us. Whatever plague struck them, was not an accident this was deliberate and malicious.

We can only guess this must be the work of Chaos or the Skaven. But like the filthy cowards they have long fled before we could find them.

Whoever was responsible for this, we will find them, record them in the book and we will have this grudge settled in its totality.

Right now we must begin the dismantlement of the temples…The Great Work demands it.

By Grungi's hammer…

It is one thing to be taught in their ways. It is another to see it in effect.

We know and sometimes questioned why the Skinks would add elements and rites into every block of their stone masonry when we know they could easily use the raw concrete to build entire citadels in a single sitting.

I told the builders to start simple and take out the loosest stones without collapsing the structure.

I must confess I laughed at how foolish they looked when a group of five dwarfs couldnt loosen a single brick off the temple steps.

I lost good gold in a fool's bet thinking I could have done better.

Seeing that regular pickaxes wouldn't cut it. The iron actually broke against the stone. How does that make sen- *angry scribbles*

When our pickaxes either bent or shattered, we were forced to resort to what valuable gromril pickaxes we could gather and leveraged the deceptively simple brick. It took some creativity with our engineers, but a good amount of pulley and gear work, we finally managed to pry one off the blasted step!

We did the same thing to the adjacent brick next to it and it took another one long hour to get the second brick off without our mechanisms breaking down from pulling it!

We could not understand. When we checked what kept those tiny blocks of stone glued to the base, there was nothing…

Absolutely nothing!

What took the combined backbone of a dozen dwarfs nearly broken us of our equipment from simply pulling two stone blocks out of its base only to find there was nothing sticking at the bottom…

We took a break to catch our breath and settled on simply studying the two bricks we had managed to pull off. We kept them separated. Cautious on what will happen if we stick the two back together without understanding why.

Our Engineers and everyone, myself included could not understand what made such a simple stone so resistant to our efforts. It looked like a simple block of stone. It reflected beautifully in the light and remained pristine even after the abuse we put it through, but we could not fathom what made such a stone different to ours.

Eventually I came up with a theory, an unfounded one, but something worth seeing if it proves right and sent a runner to get a Runesmith. I gave him a hefty amount of gold I had on hand to hire one of the masters. It wouldn't be long until one such Runesmith came to our construction site

After explaining the situation and giving the blocks, the Runesmith separated himself from our group to sit in his own corner staring at the blocks.

The Runesmith studied long into the night trying to understand the stone's nature.

At one point he asked all of us over and specifically asked me to stick the stones together. At first I thought him daft if we have repeat the ordeal again trying to pry them apart.

Yet when I tried, nothing happened. I stuck them together end to end and stacked one top of each other, but they did not exhibit that strange force that stuck them together.

So we relented and gave them back to the Runesmith. I remembered him stroking his beard, and set them apart a good thirty centimeters from each other. We could not understand what went through his thoughts.

Until he took out his hammer.

My builders and engineers first thought that he was about to destroy it, lost in the throes of aggravation and incense not being able to solve its mystery.

But I had faith that he was no fool, he is a Karak Zorn Dwarf and he knows the value of the Lizardmen's ways. I had to calm the men to trust in the Runesmith lest they receive severe reprimand upon themselves and their house.

I did not understand what happened, there was no flash of light or the whiff of magic in the air, but he simply tapped each block once before he put them together end to end.

And both ends stuck.

He passed it to me to ensure that what he theorized was correct. I tried with all my strength to pry them apart but they would not give! I passed it around my men to take in the knowledge and tried their luck. While I conversed with the Runesmith regarding my passing theory.

A theory that would soon I hope to be a new founding technique in advancing the craft of masonry work.

It furthered the fiery need in my belly and quivering beard to catch up to our departed friend and see the Great Work completed and done well.

The single block of stone was 'alive' in the loosest sense it was still a simple block of stone but it was reactive. With the Runesmith saying that magic flows around the stone in waves and forces like a magnet. It was crafted and formed with a circuit flow so that it connects to each other.

We have a lot of work ahead of us.

I am heading back to the hold for the night and will make arrangements in the morning to commission every available Runesmith to start assisting in the Temple-City's dismantlement and be moved to the hold.

Even in death Lord Quetzalan your people still teach us your wisdom.

May the ever dreaming Valaya watches you in your vigilance old friend.


	6. Chapter 3 - Lead the Way

AN: Nothing too extravagant this time (At least not prior to writing this). Sorry for no chapters last week been busy looking after the house. Recent exploration on Gotrek and Felix makes me tempted to involve them sometime in the future, but I need your help in order to get their characters right. No Thanquol for now (maybe) as I already have a lot on my plate regarding antagonists that I have at least have a somewhat proper grip on.

Anyway, here is the next chapter.

Chapter 3: Lead the Way - LONG AWAITED GREETINGS

~Temple of Skulls~

Ra-Tok tapped his finger against the runic stone tablet at the center of the council chamber. Geomantic energy flowed once again throughout the Fortress-Temple. Reawakening the spawning pools of old lying in the lower levels of the temple's inner chambers. Good fortune still yet remained for the Astromancer as they have mercifully remained untouched since the deaths of its true inhabitants.

Skinks and Kroxigors cohorts were being spawned incongruently and immediately put to work with the fortress' restoration. Dark grey crests adorned their bodies marking their colors as being a native of their now recovering temple-city.

While as expected the more complex Saurus cohort spawns were being spawned more slowly by comparison. They, doing as their were designed as the protectors and patrol surrounding areas within and out of the temple.

Kroq-Gar stood tall among his assembled priests and warriors in the old Slann council chamber. They gathered atop an island in the middle of a constructed pond. Where resting at its center, a square stone tablet projected a light construct mapping the Temple of Skulls and the surrounding regions in impeccable detail. Their view from the map could only be described as looking down from a god's eye perspective.

Starting with the Temple of Skulls at the map's center, the construct showed the state of their surroundings via a menagerie of colors in real-time the conditional state of the regions the lizardmen have regained control over.

Serpent Coast and the Cursed Jungles showing a satisfying hue of green of the purest jade. An uplifting sign of restoration to those lands from the poisonous taint of the skaven's constant exposure to warpstones. While the last vestiges of the grey undead curse was being scoured away by the purification of the Geomantic Energy.

A week has passed between Ra-Tok restoring the fortress to operational capacity and Kroq-Gar's return from eliminating the skaven infestation from Lizardmen lands. They count their blessings for the winds have not been stirred by the coming Ritual of Prognostication. But such a quietness means that it is only a matter of time until Lord Mazdamundi deems sufficient for the ritual to be enacted and their journey northward cannot be made foolishly.

With the reactivation of the Geomantic Node here in the Temple of Skulls, the neighboring regions were healing from the taint and skink handlers were migrating the beasts back to their proper demesne after the undercity's purification pyre and destruction via a mass burial.

While the ugly grey of the undead curse here has been all but eradicated from sacred grounds, Ra-Tok swears by Uxmac he will wreak a vengeance that was only befitted of the undead that dared sully this venerable site. The ancient spirits of the temple spoke favorably of a man and dwarf warmblood pair that was responsible for the death of the wicked vampire heathen that attempted to tap into the temple's deeper powers.

He has already made plans to prepare proper tributes befitting of their deeds. It was not their way to let such things go unrewarded to these noble souls in the defense of the Great Plan and in turn the world. The stars have spoken that Ra-Tok will meet them soon. Their destiny linked to them in the coming future.

"Speak to us Astromancer. What has this revelation unveiled to us in the Great Plan?"

The Star-Priest was broken from his deep thoughts by the venerable Kroq-Gar. He stood at the head of the tablet. Waiting. Where behind him was an empty and vacant palanquin that belonged to a slann but was tragically bare and bereft of one. The Oldblood's attention was divided from looking at the overview map of their portion of the Southlands to the current deliberation of this meeting they gathered here this very night.

He berated his foolishness, age was creeping upon him.

"Apologies Honored Elder." He apologetically bowed "Suffice to say this presents to us an opportunity we cannot overlook."

He noted the slight almost invisible nod of the ancient Oldblood's head. Approval of being aware of their current circumstances.

"Explain to us Astromancer."

None in the room needed the explanation, nor was it out of necessity. Kroq-Gar and everyone present here have already grasped the nature of the subject that is about to be broached. Rather than an explanation for the reason, it was more of a formal affirmation that is to be put on record for them to later archive.

"At once mighty one." He gestured to all within the chamber on the three objects that lie upon the tablet. Each one, was of Dwarfen made craftsmanship but have the strongest connection to the ways of the Old Ones than any mountain dweller previously encountered in the Lizardmen's brief clandestine travels across the World Pond.

The last of such long excursions being two centuries ago with Gor-Rok and an Seventh-Generation Slann making the journey to the Chaos Wastes in eliminating a Greater Daemon of the One of Falsehoods from journeying into the mortal plane.

"Lying upon the sacred stone are three objects that shows evidence of a Dwarf hold that has not forgotten the ways of the Old Ones." He picked up the obsidian encased skull pauldron to the gathered lizards. "Your findings reveal an unprecedented development that is worth the full attention and contemplation of our master. Speak your thoughts my brothers."

The lizardmen gathered to this meeting being Oku-Los as the Oracle Priest who will relay his thoughts to Lord Mazdamundi of the findings once they have reached a conclusion of the revelation. And Teenee Tymm as the leader of his cohort who accompanied the Oracle to the discovery of the chest's contents.

Other skinks and kroxigors surrounded them as both witness to this momentous event and out of their own curiosity. Some had scaled down from the ceilings with their chisel tools still in their grip. While scribes surrounded them to later record this event to carve reliefs into the temple walls.

Oku-Los spoke first, his twin tails twitching with enthusiasm "I feel in my spirit the guidance of Sotek at hand. The Serpent God at work in the Great Plan by the revelation of finding His icon on a talisman of dwarfen craft. We seek them out and through them follow the winding trail of Sotek and brave the tunnels of the Great Mountains Honored Ones."

Ra-Tok lowered his crest sharing his fellow priest's judgement on their plans moving forward.

"And if they are dead priest... What then?" The biting hiss of the saurus dialect spoke out. Tar-Kus voicing out on the wisdom of such presumptuous decision.

Teenee's fin flared at such disrespect for the priests. An Honor Guard of Hexoatl he may be, a Temple Guard answers and obeys to the Mage-Priests or an Oldblood. It is not their place to question their wisdom! The Red-Crested Skink hissed with incense welling inside of him to lash out at the Saurus' impudence.

Kroq-Gar raised his fist and in an instant Teenee's rage vanished, silenced at the Old One's simple gesture and immediately was on his knees. His crest and body lowered to the floor showing him a great physical plea for forgiveness of his near act of brashness and impudence to a Temple Guard of Lord Mazdamundi.

He lowered his fist, more than satisfied at the skink warrior's loyalty and forethought. Unlike the warrior in his blind zeal to protect the priest's honor, said priests were not at all offended by the scathing tone in the Temple Guard's query.

Tar-Kus knows full well that speaking to Oku-Los as the Oracle Priest is the same as speaking to Lord Mazdamundi himself and could easily be mistaken as impudence. It is not an uncommon sight to see a skink slain where he stood for stepping out of his bounds. Yet such words are a vital part of the mighty guardian's duty to protect their charges. If he did not convey such things then he failed as a bodyguard.

"The information is as true as the stone mighty protector. Whispers from the Slann of Zlatlan in the Geomantic Network know of these dwarfs to be among the living. Their existence is sound." Ra-Tok bows while affirming to the Temple Guard's skepticism.

Tar-Kus neither showed satisfaction nor denial. Only a simple acceptance that his question was answered so that he may focus his all on his gene-written duty.

Kroq-Gar tapped the Revered Spear of Tlanxla twice upon the stone. The double thud of metal on stone deafening the room. The chime vibrating off the alien metal rung with demanded attention that spoke for itself as loud as a gong. Skink that were hard at work restoring the temple stones hung from the portals eagerly listening to their great one's words.

"Then we are as one." Kroq-Gar began to his current council "We travel to the mountains and find a passageway to the dwarf tunnels."

He turned to Ra-Tok "Star Priest, coax the spawning pools. I will need more warriors come first light. A Vortex ritual is soon to come, I will need many warriors from here to where I am once the veil is thinned.

"As you will it, Honored Elder" Ra-Tok moves out of the chamber and out to the spawning pools beneath the temple to fulfill his given task.

The Oldblood gestured to the two remaining skinks. Teenee still bowing his head until Kroq-Gar commands him otherwise. Kroq-Gar was thoroughly pleased with the skink warrior's sincerity and knows that he will achieve great things in the Serpent God's name.

"You may stand once more warrior of Sotek." He bidded to the Great Weapon using skink warrior. Who rose once more with fervor blazing in his eyes "Your cohort from this moment will be tasked in protecting the Oracle Priest with your lives. Your duty is to his protection until I deem it fit you are needed elsewhere."

"Yes!" Teenee chirped with a salamander's fire in his breast. "Your command will be as if it was from Sotek himself!"

He then turned to the patiently waiting Oracle Priest.

" make your preparations and start tracking we must find safe passage for their hold if we are to bypass the desserts and the mountains." Kroq-Gar finished. Motioning for Oku-Los to be dismissed to begin his task.

Oku-Los lowered his crest and made to move to where Vertrabrik was being housed in. Only to to immediately step to the side, avoiding the sprinting and excitable skink he almost collided with.

"Honored Elder! Honored Elder!"

A skink, one bearing the crest for farming and harvest barreled into the chamber. His webbed feet skipping on captured air beneath the webby leather of his skin. Sprinting across the pond onto the island and prostrated himself before the Oldblood.

"Master! The Old Ones have granted us favour on this momentous day!"

He and his current cohort followed the farming skink outside of the temple. The night was chill and the moon was high. Stars shining freely in the skies with the moon shining brightly overhead. He followed towards the portal that led outside and see what has come to them that has enlivened the skinks.

While any aid from the Old Ones are a fortuitous sign, it also serves as an omen. A portent of the coming danger was so great that whatever good fortune has come their way, they were needed in the near future.

He looked outside, beyond the torches and the reawakened solar towers. He sees the object of the skinks celebrating in the warrior's presence. All readied with their tributes of gold.

It was indeed a sign of good fortune. It has been a very long time since his last encounter with the venerable kroxigor spawn.

The enchanted gates of the Temple of Skulls were wide open as the numerous skinks parted before the mighty kroxigor and his travelling host.

Whereas Kroq-Gar will soon to host a mighty unified force never before seen in the history of the Old World. This special kroxigor has never stopped having his own host of followers. Wherever he was needed, spawning pools bubbled to spawn kroxigors to follow under his shadow. Skinks were granted unconditional leave by their masters if they so choose to follow this singular entity if they believe aligns to their Great Purpose.

Since the end of the Great Catastrophe, ever did this one kroxigor and by extension his mighty host wandered where he is needed most in the Great Plan of the Old Ones.

He is one of two lizardmen still within the realm of the living capable of saying with certainty to have been part of the beginning with the Old One's Great Plan. He is older than any living Slann in existence a true elder of the Lizardmen who even the Saurus adhere to his wisdom. He is the Kroxigor of the First Spawning.

Nakai the Wanderer.

Kroq-Gar walked down the hundred steps to take in the sight of the Wanderer's army of giants and Nakai himself.

As expected of he who came from the First Spawning, Nakai's stature made other Kroxigors feeble by comparison. He stood at a monstrous height that equaled Grmyloq's own standing height.

He remembered a time when even he looked at the kroxigor in reverence of his pure white albino body. Time though has weathered the ancient one's hide, thicker and deadlier than any other of his kind. His scales have more resemblance to a spine of a razordon. No doubt tougher than even the mightiest armor. His albino body has long become blurred underneath a millennia of natural growth and the stained leftover remains of the countless enemies he has eradicated. All of them accentuated by the many angry scars that adorned his body.

He looked like a fiery mountain of a volcano given form following his Great Purpose.

Nakai's army also suits him well. Kroxigors marched in concert step with their cohorts. Skinks who share the crests of their kroxigor spawn brother pack themselves together into their units. Every skink within the First Spawning's horde held a weapon and a shield in their hands while their spawn cousin either held their mauls without the use of chains. While the deadlier kroxigors wore cestus on the arms to augment their already considerable strength.

While a cluster of albino kroxigor clearly of singular spawn surround and march at Nakai's sides as self-appointed bodyguards. Each one a capable leader in their own right. While they may pale to the First-Spawning Kroxigor, they were dedicated to follow in the Wander's mighty shadow.

Kro-Gar reached the base of the temple as did Nakai. The two ancients stood across one another under the gaze of the Temple of Skulls this night under the firmament. Nothing was spoken between them when they reached arms length to one another, for none needed to be said. The hierarchy was clear.

Kroq-Gar lowered his crest to the Kroxigor as his equal standing. While the Temple Guards and everyone kneeled. Including the kroxigors of Nakai's warriors. He as the wielder of the Spear of Tlanxa cannot allow it rest and must forever remain standing. Doubly so as the wielder to the Hand of the Gods carrying the wisdom of how the sun never bows to anyone except when it comes to rest.

Nakai returned the bow of Xhotl and Tlanxla's chosen. The Great Plan has led him here to the Southlands. He will follow what he has been tasked.

"What does the Great Plan ask of me Honored Elder?" Kroq-Gar asked

Nakai growled using his rarely used vocal cords to communicate with the Oldblood.

"GUIDE. MOUNTAINS. DWARFS." Nakai simply spoke.

"Thank you, venerable one of the First Spawning. When do we depart?" Kroq-Gar asked in reply ready to move at a moment's notice.

Nakai walked past the Oldblood to follow, the Kroxigor motioned with his golden mace to follow.

"FIRST LIGHT. GOLDEN ROAD. XOHKA. DISCUSS."

Both Lizard Lords entered the temple. Leaving those outside to resume their duties or simply wait standing by on any incoming orders. It would not be until tomorrow morning they reemerged and set with their armies to the Dwarf Hold.

~Skeggi~

Mono-ocular organs watched from the shadows of the trees. Hiding in complete silence, spying from the cover of green, anticipating the coming purge that was to ensue on the tainted warmblood's revolting settlement. Mazdamundi of Hexoatl was on the move, and he was about to make his first and only appearance to the city settlement. A fitting spectacle that he must personally see for himself.

One eye looked over the sloven streets of brick and lumber the warmblood's call home while other was keeping watch on the dirt path leading to deeper jungles.

No matter how many times he looked at Skeggi, it never ceases to bring about the disgust he feels towards it. A so called testament as the first and oldest city to lay claim on Hexoatl's shores. A thriving living piece of man's boldness and vision to sail the unknown and conquer a place for themselves in the New World.

A land of new opportunities! Of adventure! Braving the mysteries of virgin land with comrades at their side and lauding their tales of fame, glory, and wealth in taverns among the masses!

He could only scoff and despair for such foolishness in their small-minded pursuit. What an utter lie and hubris these warmbloods were to think such things. Either out of blindness or pride, Skeggi was a place founded by the warmblood ancestor barbarians who worshiped the shrouded forms of the Great Enemy.

There was nothing noble or glorious for their deeds, they sought to loot their resting places in search of trinkets and baubles. Desecrating what should have been nurtured for the lizardmen to rebuild in the future and eventually passed on.

Either by ignorance or even worse; leniency, this blight against the Lizardmen will be met with the proper justice it so rightly deserved.

He watched silently those ugly hodgepodge of warmbloods manning their defense towers and battlements. Lines of men manning the walkway leaning over the crenelations of their gate. No doubt from the terror sown in the disappearance of their scouting cohort survivors who managed to make it back to Skeggi to warn them of the massive lizardmen army heading their way.

Survivors he selectively picked that were allowed to flee to tell the tale of their comrades deaths.

Lord Mazdamundi's power could be felt by the warmblood wizard's in Skeggi. They became alerted to the Slann's power the moment a sudden massive magical presence headed towards their general direction. Warranting the inhabitants to send their veteran scouts and hunters to travel into the jungle to ascertain the threat heading towards them.

He had personally seen to these cohorts disappearances, where not even one warmblood has managed to even be kissed by the light of the Second-Generation Slann's Sunburst Standard of Hexoatl.

For days and nights he and his kin led these warmblood warriors to become carrion for the jungle.

Some calculatively made to seem accidental; such as tricking one group into the breeding pond of razor mosquitos where swarms of the dog-sized insects drained them of their fluids or rubbing the specially bred spores of the lethal Oztoya Mushrooms on their lips while they slept as they died screaming to see mushrooms growing and fusing to their bodies. Draining them of their vital fluids to feed the growing fungus. Where once expired, his hunters would harvest off their corpses to be reused elsewhere while the remains become food for the natural jungle creatures that live off of these special mushrooms.

While some deaths were purposely made to shove terror into their hearts; Ambushing the warmbloods into killing zones to strike them with an array of poisons that wildly differed in their effects before painfully succumbing to the symptoms.

He relished in the deaths of those that deserve the fine mortal tip of his lethal darts.

Some were subtle hallucinogenic poisons that causes dementia killing his kinsmen before killing himself to release him from his waking nightmare. Some were outright designed to be painful and psychologically traumatizing; with one cohort suffered a barrage of corrosive necrotic poisons that ravaged the flesh, liquifying their internal organs before they died in explosive gory deaths with their watery remains popping out from every exposed orifice.

There sadly were however exceptions. Warmbloods who do not share in the hedonism of their lifestyle. Those who exhibit good qualities that would have been admirable and no doubt be rewarded elsewhere had they not decided to venture here in these jungles.

To them, to these tragic few...he gave them his own form of mercy. Using venom extract from special serpent breed called the Dreaming Snakes. These ones died peaceful sleeping deaths, those few he studied and deemed not deserving of his wrath. Where they would live out their last most cherished thoughts and dreams before their body simply ceased to function. Where their soft smiles would stay even when their bodies have gone cold.

Now. The fruits of his labor were seen in full effect. The Skeggi militia that has held back even the Chaos-tainted elve's Black Arks or even the corsairs of the undead's get were committed entirely on the defense of their settlement.

He and his cohort's sabotage operations of the warmblood's defenders were numerous and all of his actions went unseen. Tampering with their primitive clocks sent entire schedules into disarray. Mismanagement of inventory has wreaked havoc on where keeping track what has gone missing or put in the wrong place.

More than one of their wizards have tried to find a possible infiltrator in their midst where he would order the skinks to swap vital agents for their method of rituals causing catastrophic results.

He kept his kills for these wizards low so as to keep their illusion of mere carelessness and by the time they have set up their wards he and his brothers would be long gone without any trace of them being there.

The warriors on the walkways were skittish. The blistering sun was beaming down on them. Even those who have adapted to the harsh jungle could feel it being particularly unforgiving.

Good. Chotec was with them this day.

His other eye twitched. He snapped his head to the west. Both eyes now locked at the front where he could see a light shining in the distance. Where it was like a rising sun into the sky.

There, at the front, Mazdamundi has become visible in his sights. He rode on his favored Ancient Stegadon Zlaqq. Along with two other Stegadons carrying the venerable Engine of the Gods.

The defenders moved to man their cannons while their wizards prepared their spells. They were nervous seeing the distant shape on the horizon, their eyes squinting from the light source from both in front and from above.

All according to plan.

"Chieftain" a whisper from behind shifted into visibility. "We are ready."

One of his own cohorts has returned. Everything has been set.

He returned only silence to his brother skink. Acknowledged by the Chieftain Chameleon Skink, disappeared with a shift of pigmentation blur of his skin before leaving him, to hide when the fighting starts and fulfill the task he has set to the now long gone skink.

With slow purpose, he unslung the golden blowpipe from his back. Careful to not let what little light that poked through the foliage to reflect on its shining immaculate surface. He grasped one of the many glass flasks that were strapped around his waist with woven vines and pulled the stopper. He delicately took a feathered needle from a loop of his blowpipe's sling and dipped it into one part of the gastric chemical of a salamander's fire gland. Fully coating the ivory needle before pulling it out, and letting the drying moisture to cling on the needle.

He loaded the feathered end into the blowpipe where it will be allowed to rest. Saving the loaded weapon for his moment to strike.

As a Skink he would not dare to let Lord Mazdamundi needlessly exert his will against cannon fire and enemy spells. Not when he could bring devastation and death before the warmbloods have even realized that the war has already begun.

He was spat out of the Realm of Ruin for a purpose in the Great Plan. Whether because the Dark Gods feared him for killing their innumerable champions or because he found a path out of that hellscape by accident. He did not care. He would see them dead all the same and all who follow them deserve nothing short than true death.

The pigments of his skin changed, the enchantments of his blowpipe followed its master's changing skin. Before both vanished completely. His presence seemingly disappearing like a shadow spectre of the jungle.

By the time he was gone, a hunter also had the same thought to hide within the same tree he squatted in before. Never realizing the immediate danger that was about to fall on his home.

AN: Sorry for the long wait! Been a busy week plus I just can't seem to able to write without an outline to help guid me. Personally edited this time from top to bottom. Gonna send it to my editor to be properly looked at.

Thank you again. Comment and Critiques as always are welcome.


	7. Chapter 4 - Ode to Retribution

AN: Hi guys here's the next chapter. For the info on the chapter's delay go to the end for the info.

Anyway, hope you all are doing well and safe, here is the next chapter.

Chapter 4: Ode to Retribution - OPENING ARIA OF CHOTEK

~Skeggi New World Gatehouse~

"By the hairy balls of the Hound! The sun should be hanging above our heads not in front of us!"

Morn arrived to city Skeggi, the longest morning in the people's memory. The sun on this particular day feeling deliberate in crawling towards noon. The blistering sphere of fire was high, its heat exceptionally unforgiving today. With nary a cloud to offer some comfort of shade in some small faint hope of mercy from the gods.

The gateway port city of the New World was abuzz with life, cagey and charged with the express knowledge of an oncoming Lizardmen attack.

Normally, Skeggi's people would have little care to the savage's attacks as such bouts of strife by the beast folk were the common norm in their day to day livelihood as one would wipe their ass after a trip to a chamber pot.

On the contrary, they welcomed the challenge for glory and honor as they have done so for more than a hundred generations.

Something however was different.

Starting with the scores of death and disappearance of their scouting parties sent to ascertain the lizard's forces.

Topped off with the numerous 'misfortunes' that has occurred sporadically across the city in as many days, the usually rowdy yet stalwart locale of the port city felt the gravid weight of uncertainty pressing down on their broad shoulders.

Paranoia was rife, suspecting a saboteur within their midsts, but none could find the trail of the intruder's hidden footsteps. Some fools of the superstitious lot suspected the work of ghosts and spirits. While not beyond the realm of possibility, practitioners to the Winds of Shyish silenced such notions as being the work of the living. Worse still, those those who distrusts magic entirely suspects them to be the perpetrators.

An act that only encouraged their unseen culprit to plant false evidence to the scene of his attacks. Furthering deteriorating cohesion and fan the flames unrest in their tightly knit community.

The only possibility to the identity of the saboteur was someone affiliated with the Lizardmen or possibly the enigmatic Amazons. Yet such is the anonymity of their infiltrator they could neither confirm or deny their suspicions.

Noon drew close, the sun reaching its highest point in the sky. Everyone has either taken shelter in their domiciles or prepared themselves in the inevitable confrontation. Men and women alike along with adventurous dwarfs who have come to Skeggi seeking Lustria's riches tightened their grip on their weapon of choice.

"Just aim straight you louts! We'll drown the savages in steel!"

It was an especially ordeal moment for the handgunner men on the ramparts. Double the burden for the archers of both the natural and mechanical variety. As they were being forced to contend with a second light source that did not come from the sky, but on the horizon.

Being first in line of defense, their sights were being blinded by a shining radiance coming directly in front of them. Impairing their very means to accurately gauge and line their shots.

The warriors below were mystified by the halo that emanated from behind the wall and spilled from the cracks of the gate doors.

Not sharing in their sentiment, the men on the towers and battlements threw insults and spite at their unfavorable predicament. With their only logical course of action being aim straight at the enemy and pray their blindfire hits something!

"Hey wizards! Do something about this light! We can't see a bloody thing!"

Disciples dedicated to the winds of Ulgu were ill forced to weather the ire of their peers. Empire sanctioned wizards and Norsca shamans shared sneers of contempt towards their ignorant fellows for stating the obvious. When in truth, they have already attempted to do so the moment their physical sight was being impaired.

The mages have not in fact been standing around in dumb idle like fools in a psychiatry asylum. But tried they did to cast their spells to no effect. They tapped deep into the Grey Wind of Ulgu to conjure a mist of darkness to aid them against the savages. Shielding them against the burning brightness that seared into their physical and immaterial eyes.

It truly was like looking at a second sun. In more ways than one for the unfortunate practitioners to the Winds of Magic.

In their eyes they saw a light. A light so bright they could feel themselves slowly going blind. They physical luxury of their tightly shut normal eyes were denied to them the protection the simple act provided. The light penetrated through their immaterial eyes searing into their skulls with its burning radiance.

The usually thick and choking fog of the Grey Magic evaporated the moment their spells were let loose against the light. Such instance to water droplets being snuffed against the inferno of a roaring fire.

The sundering luminescence of the potent talisman combined with its owner's overwhelming crushing presence, it was unfathomable to grasp where the limits of this being's awesome power began and where it ended.

"To the pits with this! Just fill the bastards and see how they like it!"

Handgunners and cannoneers happily obliged whoever told them to fire. Fingers squeezed steel triggers and gaseous residue spewed from vents! A medley of thunder boomed out across the ramparts. The rapture of flying steel signaled the operatic declaration of war with the whistling sounds of its casted steel hurtling towards the Lizardmen!

Soot suffocated the once serene air clouding them in the harsh acrid smell of sulfur. Local made and imported gunpowder from Altdorf and Nuln stifled the natural day tropical jungle flora with ashen alchemical residue of black powder weapons.

Handgunners fired their barrage from their weapon's namesake. Be it single barrel or repeater barrels they had every intention to shower their silhouetted foes in iron. Blinded as they may be, they held nothing but the utmost surety their blanket shots will run right through their scaly hides.

Cacophonous sounds of shifting mechanisms twisted and turned. Nine death dealing barrels born of the mad genius inventor from Nuln fired in dedicated rotations of threes. Ever infamously volatile yet equally lethal did the Helblaster Volley Guns fired in rapid succession to their. A fitting composite artillery piece of the repeating handgunner and its elder weapon.

Disciplined crewmen with mechanical rhythm rammed their rammers, stuffing and pounding down powder bags and cannonballs into Empire-forged Great Cannon barrels before they ducked aside to shelter their ears for the ensuing combustion. Men holding the lit fuses on the end of a fire iron were lowered into the touch hole of the Great Cannons igniting the gunpowder with explosive force, launching the cast iron ball to the target of its handler's woe.

While muffled by the thunderous sounds of their black powder kin, bow strings strummed in an almost harmonious concert as their own payloads were fired. Hailing bolts and arrows were launched from teeming bows and crossbow as they rained toward the Lizardmen.

A maelstrom of iron balls propelled from smooth bore barrels spun towards the foremost Lizardmen line. While from the glaring sun above, arrows and quarrels reached the arc of their height before the will of gravity commanded them to return to earth like the falling rain.

One such cannonball was ahead of the barrage, the first to eventually reach the Lizardmen line. Shot from the very first barrel ejected when the Great Cannon crew were given the order to fire. Its shot ensured a direct hit where its deadly iron mass would pulverize the ugly mug of the giant blob into an unrecognizable smear.

It would shamefully however be a moment of much mortification. For its kiss would never reach, but repelled. Instead, its iron touch will feast not on the righteous reptiles, but on men this day.

With but the simplicity of thought, something flashed into form in the time it took for the cannonball to reach the frontmost mounted Lizardman. A feat even the greatest mage of the Empire required time to cast the spell. Where even the foremost masters of their craft in the Old World need seconds to conjure a sustainably made durable barrier. Somewhere, someone behind the barrier, among scaly ranks of the Lizardmen was-is a user of the Winds of Magic beyond their mortal comprehension.

Contact was finally made. When the ball of iron's careened high velocity speeds ended against an immovable wall of shimmering aethereal blue. Black iron forged metal impacted against the stained-glass shimmering blue wall that rippled like a pebble dropped into an undisturbed lake.

Devastating stores of potential kinetic energy inside the cannonball was not deflected to spread open and let dissipate throughout its field... but worse. The energy instead bounded back, its transference reversed, or to simply put, reflected.

At the point of contact between the manufactured iron ball against the projected wall of pure energy. The contained kinetic energy within its spherical shape rippled outward, destroying the molecular bonds holding its physical form together. Shattering the already dangerous hunk of iron into searing hot shrapnel flechettes in a concussive backblast towards its senders.

"SHIT! Take cover! Take cover!"

The first to fall were the ones still standing that gave the order to fire and the bowmen standing in the volley line.

Orange hot chunks of heated metal seared through metal, leather, and flesh. Bloody charred pieces of once proud men were sent about in wild directions before or immediately sent flying from their posts with small holes or entire limbs perforated off their person.

The few men who had the instinct and cautionary sense to duck before the order were the smart ones not to become victims of the current ongoing ricochet.

One Empire handgunner took off his helmet, its feathery pinions long sheared off in the heat of the crossfire -if it could be called that when the enemy has not fired back- to lean aside a portion of the helm over the embrasure as a makeshift spy mirror. Eyes squinted against the smokey residue of the black powder, concentrating on the less than ideal fish eye reflection from his helmet plate. He saw the blue wall rippled like rain droplets against a window. Terrified and impressed something was capable of tanking their combined artillery fire that would have knocked down an Imperial fortress's wall several times over.

He could barely make out something round riding atop the Stegadon while the familiar shape of the Skinks as the Lizardmen called their smaller kin; manned their turrets, but a dedicated portion huddled protectively over their charge at the center. Meaning that who or whatever it was they were protecting was someone of import.

Worse still were the two other Stegadons carrying identical arcane devices of some sort on their backs radiating their own mystical light. In all his time spent here with the locals and their millenia long tales of glorious combat against the lizardmen. Never have they mentioned anything remotely similar to these massive golden disks they were carrying.

A spark erupted in his vision, blinking away the flashing colored spots he realized a shrapnel knocked his helmet clear off his fingers. He paused to at the now empty fingers and sighed in dejection how he liked that particular one and now he has to go through the trouble to find a suitable replacement.

"Don't falter men! it's witchcraft can't keep it up forever! Put the pressure on those savages!"

So the firing continued. So did the results.

Bits of bone fragments and gore peppered through the air above the grounded defenders below. They watched in morbid fascination seeing them either pushed back from the rapid blows falling to ground at their level or drop lifelessly into sprays of giblets like being subjected to a grinder in a butcher's parlor.

"SHALLYA HELP ME PLEASE! IT'S IN MY EYE! ITS BURNING! GET IT OUT!"

"Healer! We need a healer! Someone help the man!

One poor soul wailed his his heart out where one large fragment of a cannonball remained in relative tact was lodged in a Tilean sailor's eye socket. He was numb to the searing pain of the hot metal burning into his bare hands for the immediate agonizing pain of his fleshy nerve clusters being fused to the still hot piece of iron searing to the inside of his skull.

Few tried to get to him, but by the time they did it would still be fruitless due to the severity of his injury.

Seconds later, the lad died screaming. His face stuck in perpetual torment with the smell of brain matter cooking in the air.

The Empire handgunner has had enough of this. Their barrage was only just getting themselves killed into the grinder.

"Hear me now men!" he shouted "Stop firing! Stop firing! Morr damn you all! I said; STOP FIRING!"

All at once everyone stopped. It didn't matter who it was or what rank he or she had only that they shared his thoughts that would mean them staying alive. Those already prone to the ground on their stomachs, let the last flying bits of the reflected shrapnel sail harmlessly over them.

Those manning the towers stayed in relative safety, their cover and angle sparing them from suffering the same ordeal that has transpired to those below. While the lucky ones blessed by seemingly divine protection suffered only minor wounds to live another day.

The archer's casualties were split down the middle. As while their shots did not have the energy to be bounced back, they suffered the same still by the shrapnel shards that has claimed the gunner men and with some taking cover long before they told to do so.

When the whistling sounds of the hot flying shards stopped and all went quiet. One by one everyone on the ramparts poked their heads out from the embrasure of the parapets.

There, the giant wall of aetherial blue remained standing. Separating them from the Lizardmen. Its surface unsullied by their concentrated fire while their side was the one scarred from the outcome. In spite of this, a small blessing came with the raised magic wall made by the lizards, it dimmed the source of the bright light coming off the totem standard atop the throne of a palanquin.

Finally the men could finally see the face of their opponent. Their first thought to the identity of the stegadon's rider being a fat grossly obese toad.

A Slann they realized.

The Handgunner has heard stories of these mysterious leaders of the Lizardmen. Few who have lived or travelled from Skeggi would hear tales from adventurers past. Those who have managed not only to survive the jungle, but be granted audience to the mysterious gigantic toad leaders of the lizard clans. All of them speaking in hushed tones of describing them to be hilariously fat and lethargic yet easily offended when within hearing distance of their servants or guardians resulting in the swift death of those few who did mock the Slann.

One detail set apart the Slann told from their stories to the slann in front of them now; This slann was wide awake, its eyes blazed with eldritch power atop the back of the meanest looking Stegadon of the Ancient kind no less, they have ever seen.

Had the situation been any different they would have perhaps mocked the thing. Its girth making it obviously incapable of standing on its own feet. With some of them thinking what its flesh tastes like for a hopeful celebratory feasting tonight. Thinking of how thick and juicy the rendered fat will enhance the meat's flavor.

However, what stopped them into a dazed silence, was the utter biblical magnitude of the Lizardmen forces that was at their door. This was no mere skirmishing force of savage primitive beasts voicing their dissent to Skeggi. The Lizardmen before them were prepared for war.

The Slann on his palanquin was manned with a full howdah crew of Red-Crested Skinks holding their shields and javelins and blowpipe. Surrounded on the ground on all sides by the largest breed of Saurus festooned in full golden armor engraved in enchanted jewels with the blackest scales of midnight. With the much sought after and unreplicable obsinite halberd held in their scaled grips.

Flanking on both sides of the center Stegadon are two others of the beastly reptiles kind. But upon their backs, the greedy looked upon the strange glowing disks with nothing but the promise of riches. While the cautious look upon these unknown devices with trepidation. Never before have they seen the lizards utilize these artifacts. Their mechanisms unknown to them but familiar to the lizards. Meaning they fully intend to use them for some unknown effects.

Finishing this ensemble was the vast legion of lizardmen stretching as far as the human eye could see. It was the largest Lizardmen force the elders of Skeggi has ever been witnessed. Where the colors of their crests would depict coming from a single clan that came their way. Here numerous Lizards of different colored crests and races have come together to attack Skeggi. Their stone standards raised for total war.

The Handgunner ducked back down into cover cautious in the event he might get hit with a poisoned dart. Truth be told; he was worried. Volunteering as part of the Empire's expeditionary initiative was not proving to be the escape life he wanted. He thought he could start a new life here in the New World. Build himself a villa on its pearl white beaches where he could be left alone in solitude, hunting for the occasional food with his father's rifle, while sipping on the bountiful juices of Lustria's tropical fruits everyday before dying on his bed in peace and let his bones be bleached by the sand and waves.

What with the ongoing 'accidents' and his scouts turning up dead, missing, or returning insane. There is without a shadow of doubt Morr's scythe hovered precariously over their necks. With these numbers...Skeggi no longer has a future.

"Captain? Captain Lorenz sir!" Warinot Lorenz, Empire Captain of his handgunner expeditionary regiment side-glanced to the man on his right.

Becker an initiate to his regiment. He regulated his breathing drowning out the noise, trying to find his center in the midst of the wild chatter.

"Capta-!" Lorenz non-gently clenched a calloused hand over the new recruit's jaw. Becker felt the painful tightness in his captain's finger, any harder and he feared he might unlodge a tooth. Lorenz let go of his rifle to put a finger to his lips 'demanding' silence.

He let go. His message conveyed about his momentary need of silence.

Becker rubbed and shuffled his jawline to alleviate the moment of numbness caused by his superior. While he honestly was still undergoing an internal panic, the captain's rock solid calm helped cool and temper the flight or fight response of everyone under his command.

Lorenz though cared not for Becker's approval or his men looking to him for guidance. He kept his eyes away from the slann and its vast army with his back against the merlon knowing that if he looked at it he will either get sucked in by its presence or be blinded by the standard it carried. They were a distraction that he did not need. Sweat started to pour from his brow, but not from the tropical heat but the rising sense of danger creeping closer. With the exception of himself and his men, everyone was looking at the slann and his extermination force, but not around them.

He darted his eyes all over the view of Skeggi -a view he would happily see gone- trying to find the source his instincts were telling him of the danger that was closing in. It travelled to the streets looking browsing through the faces of the defending squads, to the shingled rooftops of the buildings that comprised this colony.

Corners that he himself have made pass through. Alleys that he regularly patrolled. He was looking for something. He needed only one! One thing out of place that didn't belong.

Feeling his keen eyesight failed him. He opted for his other senses. Closing his eyes the sensation of the world around him became much worse. He knew his fears, and he hated the darkness. It scared him. Terrified him when he was but a little boy from Ostermark. Even now, grown into his own man he will always remember those horrible nights when he could not see that lied behind the nothingness. The sorrowful wisps of souls and wretched ghouls that once tried to whisk him away from his family and fired his father's handgun for the first time.

The darkness this time was loud, he could feel it in the air the slann preparing to bring his wrath down on their heads. Fate -or more precisely his gut- however was a strange mistress, for it was most certainly not the slann being the source of the danger to his screaming senses. He could taste it. Smell it even. The wrongness of their current state.

…

Wait? Smell?

Lorenz sniffed at the air. There was indeed something he smelt that should not belong here. In fact, it was faintly odious.

Weathered brows furrowed in concern. Something tasted and smelt wrong. There was something that didn't belong. Somewhere below them.

He opened his eyes. Shifted his body to lie prone on the rampart. Becker and his group followed his lead ignoring the wizards preparing their spells and the cannoneers loading their barrels. Crawling on their bellies, Lorenz sniffed an acrid sort of smell. He was no hound, but had he been anyone else he would have missed it for certain. The bountiful harvest of fruits, honey, flowers, and the trees of the New World's jungle were always strong and permeated throughout the colony.

Lorenz looked around below and he definitely smelt something off. And it was not from the harsh blackpowder smoke residue. It smelled...wet. Slipping below the safety rails, and gripping the edges tight, he let himself dangle from the ramparts to drop down towards the ground. It was by no means a steep drop but neither was it low to the ground. A brief moment of flightness and he fell back down to the ground tucking his knees and his hands falling to the softer dirt.

Becker and the other handgunner regiment watched their captain intently ignoring the barking sounds of their fellows to pay attention to the enemy in favor of their leader.

The handgunner could see it now. There in the dirt. Beneath the bricks. Beneath the barred gates. Something wet was darkening the soil.

Moving to the moist soil, he kneeled down to see a sight that raced his heart. The moist soil seemed to stretch all across the way to the colony wall corner to corner. He grunted as he ripped a piece of his frill sleeve. Dabbing the cloth against the soil to absorb a little moisture.

A sizeable spot was made on the innocent white. He sniffed …

And threw it before turning the other way.

"RUN!" He screamed at the top of his lungs. The muscles in his neck veined to exert his strength of his throat. "Get away from the walls!"

"IT'S A TRAP!"

Becker and the regiment reacted to their captain's orders. Their bodies scrabbling in motion fueled by the burning urgency to run from whatever fate the captain had foreseen for them. They were the first off the ramparts rallying to Lorenz. The men on the ground shuffling away from the gate cautiously heeding his warning.

Empire, Tilea and Norsca men were confused unsure what to do. Their moment of indecisiveness..would only prove to be their death.

Before they could scramble to follow suit the veteran Empire captain's warning.

They felt the ground beneath their feet swell and the last thing they would see was a flash of light coming from below their feet.

_Moments before..._

Lord Mazdamundi, one of five still living but the only awakened Second-Generation Slann. Arch Mage-Priest of Hexoatl and supreme defender of the northern region of Lustria aptly called the Isthmus of Lustria. Sees the tainted city for the first time in his immortal life that has ever been an annoying thorn to the Great Plan.

'_**At last...today will be final sunrise of this blighted city.'**_

The simple sentence was the single predominant thought that has cycled repeatedly over and over like the planetary rotation of the world, the moment his eyes laid upon the now pockmarked gatehouse of Skeggi.

After being forced to make compromises for higher priority threats from the Great Enemy and to steer the Great Plan on its proper course, this discordance that threatened the Vortex was just the incentive he needed to sweep away the filth that has squatted on his domain's golden shores. He will scour the place that has made a mockery of his people's efforts down into its basic atomic components!

Once the slate is cleaned he will reshape the land into a series of volcanic shield islands that will deter any future trespassers from ever setting foot on Hexoatl's beaches! Already envisioning the soon to be newly localized biosphere to choke the area in clouds of ash and boiling steam to burn entire galleons venturing too close to shore.

It was something that he thought he would never do to retain a piece of his domain's natural beauty, but a sacrifice he is willing to pay…

His dour mood and internal contemplations of his eventual terraforming efforts did not stop his split his focus from keeping the Shield of the Old Ones raised, shading them from the rain of the warmblood's iron toys.

All around him, his army waits in complete silence. The Temple Guards ever maintained their vigilance of their master surrounding Zlaqq from all sides. Ready to defend or go on the offense at their slann's command.

The formerly fifty saurus cohort now thirty watched with stoic disinterest at the warmblood's attempt at opposing the will of Lord Mazdamundi with their feeble guns. The slann's barrier effortlessly halted the projectiles. Each shot blooming into clouds of debris small and large at the moment of contact.

It was almost serene to behold to the skinks and kroxigors who all watched the simple pitter-patter of the iron balls behind the safety of Mazdamundi's Shield of the Old Ones. Like watching raindrops splashing into an undisturbed pond and appreciate the simplistic serenity of seeing the ripples bounce across the surface.

Yukcannadoozat held a tight grip on his staff with a stone dagger in the other. Tar-Grax standing over the Start-Priest as his ever trusted guardian. The Sacred Plaques required to enact the Ritual of Prognostication is somewhere in Skeggi. Which all but added further motivation for Mazdamundi to demolish the longstanding warmblood colony down to the last brick. They were not alone though on the task of seeking the plaques.

Onyx black weapons gleamed in the sunlight reflecting one of the many ancient weapon sets belonging to the saurus warrior cohorts at his side. It's reflective luster captivating to Yukcannadoozat. Seeing for himself, some of the most venerated relic weapons being held in the grip of a saurus spawn with grey black scales and crests.

Yukcannadoozat beyond his wildest comprehension, on Lord Mazdamundi's order, has given the skink priest with the honor and burden to command the renowned; Cohort of the Black Clubs.

A saurus cohort famed for the namesake stone weapons and shields they hold in their hands. Obsidian toothed clubs inlaid with bands of gold, where its make can be traced back to the very first saurus cohorts spawned before the Great Catastrophe. Who were given the privilege of wielding these legendary weapons. For wherever and whenever they fought, only victory has been found under the standard of the two headed snake totem.

The cohort broke away from their ongoing crusade against the Blue Snakes ork tribe south of Hexoatl to answer its lord's call. Smashing the greenskins down to the last orc and goblin but never permanently without the means of a slann or skink to incinerate the festering spores. Intercepting in front the slann to link their march to Skeggi. Where Mazdamundi immediately assigned the black scaled warriors to Yukcannadoozat and Tar-Grax's surprise. Confused initially, but elated being the stronger of the two.

Yuk can hardly believe his position to command an entire saurus cohort. A named one no less. It just further shows the mystery of the will of the Old Ones. He glanced up to the spinning dial on the Black Club's standard, mystified to look upon a totem that at an age so long ago, before he spawned into existence, was under the direct command of an Old One.

The leader gave no name for the saurus proclaimed that the cohort have no need of them. Their totem was all the name that was required for Yuk to honor them. Yukcanadoozat admired such solidarity, as does Tar-Grax. Both vow that their protector's losses will not be wasted before they need to spawn successors to replenish their numbers in the coming days of their journey to gather the plaques for the Vortex Rituals.

The noise of gunfire receded before they stopped entirely. The absence of the warmblood's projectiles brought Yuk back to current situation at hand; with the warmbloods attempting to break down Mazdamundi's Shield of the Old Ones. He saw his master currently engrossed once again in a depressive mood with no hint of him having felt the strain of the attack on his raised shield. Dropping it once the firing stopped.

The burning and harsh dry smell of the debris caused by their foul black powder weapons irritated them all. Annoyance flaring across Mazdamundi's entire forces. His once depressive mien shifted instantly from being saddened to remorseless wrath. Ancient amber eyes blazed to life. A pulse of invisible force erupted from his shift in mood, pushing the cloud of chemical smoke away as if running frightened from his sheer presence. It struck the warmbloods on the wall and gate like a gale wind. With them recoiling in shock and blindness from the now visible again Sunburst Standard of Hexoatl back in full force.

Mazdamundi watched the youngling race paralyzed at his visage knowing that he struck fear into their souls with the gravity of his psychic presence. After so long he will finally be rid of this place. He breathed out a sigh of relief taking in the moment where his domain may once again be restored full and whole, starting with the destruction of Skeggi.

He raised both arms to the sky, channeling his power to enact the Ruination of Cities. Where he will demolish this blighted city and picked clean the stolen plaques off the city's carcass. A shift in air pressure warned the defending wizards of the magic he was about to unleash. In their defiance, they challenged him by casting their counterspells, in the fleeting hope of negating their coming doom.

The Cobra mace in his right hand sensed the coming counterspells. All of them denied when each one was 'bitten' in the ether before they withered and died. Not like such spells could even hurt or impede him in any meaningful way.

He closed his eyes... and concentrated...envisioning the city to becoming rubble. Ready to reshape the land in his image. See their buildings driven into the earth. A land of stone and lumber reduced to gravel and kindling. A noise from the warmblood's side shouted something but it did nothing to distract him from his goal.

His shut eyes both in mind body and spirit obscured himself from the look of panic and distress of opposing warmbloods when one of their own screamed out a warning to his fellows that managed to carry over to the slann.

"IT'S A TRAP!"

His eyes snapped open in incomprehension at the sudden warmblood's words. Confusing the slann.

'_**Trap? What Trap?'**_

A flash of heat and light answered the Second-Generation Slann's unasked question. His biological supercomputer of a mind registered the swell of the ground beneath his feet but he was still caught off guard by the outside intervention of this action.

He raised the Shield of the Old Ones for the second time that day. The energy barrier raised once again to block the incoming shockwave of force and enveloping debris. The wave struck the barrier making a hollow echoing gong to the pitter-pitter of the warmblood weapons. Yet they staggered still from the shaking earth that was caused from such an explosion.

The Cohort of the Black Clubs shielded themselves in a tightly packed circle around Yukcannadoozat and Tar-Grax in response to the earthquake. Kneeled down to prevent themselves from getting thrown off their feet in case an unseen threat that would take advantage of their brief moment of vulnerability.

Same goes for the Honor Guard of Hexoatl as they rooted themselves standing with their halberds giving them the foundation needed to steady their footing. Having a lower center of gravity of the Ancient Stegadon Zlaqq easily weathered the shaking earth and moving with vibration's flow. While the skink crew manning the blowpipes leaned to tighten their bodies against the repeater weapons. With the javelin and shield wielders holding onto Mazdamundi's palanquin in following through their duty in the protection of the slann's body.

The Lizardmen waited out the trembling earth in relative calm serenity. The Ancient Stegadons honored with the task of carrying the Engine of the Gods following Zlaqq's example to ground them themselves.

The rocking vibrations caused by the explosion left as quickly as it had came. The swaying sensation rapidly receding back to stillness.

Mazdamundi kept the Shield of the Old Ones raised while questions began to form. Confusion being the most immediate emotion at the forefront of his thoughts. He swiped the landscape in front of him with his free hand, blowing away the smoke that obscured his sight. Brows furrowed at the sight of opportune that lay before him.

The wall and the gatehouse in all were demolished. In full totality.

Where there was once a sizable defensive perimeter with high walls and towers, only a scorched black fissure was left in the wake of the explosion. Pieces of rubble began to rain all around them, as large solid chunks of iron from broken cannons, lumber from the gate and concrete masonry fell atop the Lizardmen forces were deflected and sloughed off the dome.

While Skeggi without such all-encompassing protection bore the brunt of the aftermath as broken cannon barrels and chunks of masonry broke through ceilings or outright demolished houses coating it in a layer of ash and cinders while the Lizardmen remained pristine.

'_**A subterranean detonation...' **_The slann mentally processed the mystery behind their fortuitous windfall. Skeggi was now bare to him and for all the Lizardmen to see. They empathetically shared in their master's exaltation to finally rid the world of Skeggi, its city cracked open like an egg to demolish and feast on the yolk inside.

By Mazdmundi's will, Zlaqq took the first step forward.

And his army followed.

Skeggi was vulnerable and exposed. An open wound for the reptilian race to ravage beneath their rending fangs.

Calmly the Lizardmen walked across the last expanses of ground that lie between them, and the charred rubble of Skeggi's gatehouse. More than a hundred thousand pairs of scaled feet drew ever closer to the city that ever persisted to be Hexoatl's bane. An ever present source of deviations in the Great Plan by causing errors with its very existence of theft, piracy and raids.

They marched unhindered. Without remorse. Without doubt. Without fear. Without Mercy. Stepping underfoot the bodies of the defending warmbloods who fell on their side of the explosion following the gate's destruction.

Zlaqq reached the pile that now remained of Skeggi's gatehouse. The ancient beast of Mazdamundi dug its horns and head into the wreckage to sweep aside the rubble. Mounds of stone and wood that required the assistance of steam powered machines or a coordinated effort of people was just pushed to the sides as easy one moved a fallen Duri fruit. The Ancient Stegadon swept the ground crushing a few stray pebbles along the way, his kind following closely behind him.

Until finally at last. Zlaqq has set foot for the first and only time of his life.

On Skeggi's ground.

AN: Hi guys sorry for the late update had a horrifying double whammy of being busy with my baking side-job and minor food poisoning. Thankfully I barfed out the bad lunch and suffered only a stomach ache and some runs for a night. Still took proper precautions to keep my health up. Anyway due to this being waaay past the deadline I wanted to post this. I hope this will satisfy you guys until I post the next chapter dedicated to sate your primal instincts of the Lizardmen going to town on the warmbloods.

Sortablepick: Hi there! Glad you like it. (!Minor Spoiler Warning!) Teclis in fact was supposed to be here, but for a better narrative he will appear in the next chapter.

Anyway, as always comment and critique! Your reviews always help!


	8. Chapter 5 - The Solar Lord

AN: Shout out to Azarune for the kind words and Holy Hand Grenade for the edits : )

Chapter 5: The Solar Lord - A RECKONING OVERDUE

~Skeggi~

High above Lustria, three suns hung across the firmament of Skeggi.

Three suns shone, their fire resplendent over the city's tropical morning blue lustrian skies. Thricefold bombarding beams of solar rays, shined above the port city through a scorching heatwave. It's very light was baneful to the touch. This is especially true for the wicked, for it was as if Sigmar's holy wrath glared disdainfully down upon their wretched souls hiding behind their human skin.

Strongly, did they radiate the heavens of the New World. Tranquil, still, in the void from which they sat, beyond the ken of mortal eyes. Locked in stable orbit over their world, unenlightened minds yet to grasp the scientific concept of gravity; an invisible force generated by the planet from which they stand on. Gravity, from which kept the newly constructed stellar objects from fleeing into the infinite darkness of space.

Long since the boots of Skeggi's first ancestors made this land their home for generations. Jarl Losterrikson would be forever remembered in the annals and songs of history as the first man to have ever set foot on Lustria's soil. It was not a journey to be made lightly, for like all travels, was a place unknown to men and seas treacherous by things that lurk beneath its depths. Yet made land he did, and his people prospered. A feat, that in time, reaped bountiful rewards.

Sacking lizardmen temples of their gold and precious relics. And setting roots into its fertile soils. It was and still is, the land of treasure and opportunity. Where mountains of wealth await the adventurous and the gay partake heartily to suckle on the sweet exotic harvests from which Lustria jungles provid.

Many generations would pass long after Losterrikson had joined into the great halls of his ancestors and the gods. With Skeggi as his legacy, its people endured many trials and have only thrived through the ages against their enemies. For the lizardmen Skeggi has ever been a constant source of tragedy, for all their efforts have been repelled to drive them off their rightful sacred lands. While from the sea, to the contention of the dark elves, not even with the horrors and arsenal of their Black Arks have the dark-kin of Ulthuan successfully laid waste to Skeggi to reave with their spoils.

For years Skeggi has stood firm. Unbroken. That like their founder Jarl Losterrikson, it will forever stay and be a symbol of man's dominance against the unknown and their right of conquest.

But no longer!

So commanded Lord Mazdamundi, Second Generation Slann, Lord Mage-Priest of Hexoatl; Protector and Bulwark of the Fortress-City of the Sun. For today, his will demanded that Skeggi be reduced to rubble, cleansed of its foul taint, raze their evil totems, and be nothing more than a memory from his lands.

Nourishing rays that fed their crop fields and vigoured their flesh, now boiled their skin raw red. Protective layers of steel plates became crucibles, roasting their bodies beneath their clothes, painfully casting them off to escape the searing torture against the already existing agony of the suns bearing down their heads.

Many scrambled in all directions to find the cover of shade. Woe went to many who were forced to suffer and whimper in their torment. Whereas those who did, still provided an inadequate means to their salvation. Even beneath strong and suitable covers, they were still forced to contend against the ambient heat, much less each other, making whatever obtained shelters as safe as a roiling baking oven.

Not even the mightiest strong-willed warriors could hope to fight what is essentially a force of nature. For all their staunch grit, they were still susceptible not just to the heat, but the very fact that such white-hot brightness was blinding them from seeing each other. Not even men from Araby who were used to the harsh sun and sands of Nehekhara could compare to the unnatural phenomenon they were forced to endure.

Yet… despite this awesome display of the Old Ones relic mastery in the winds of Qhaysh, there were the few, able to stand defiant in the face of such power. These few, these wretched twisted few, were those who were favored in the eyes of their dark gods. The corrupted, the tainted, and the truly depraved; true servants of the Ruinous Powers.

These truly heinous blasphemers to everything order stood for were forced to shed their human guises, and were forced to stand as they truly are in the presence of such holy light. Again, despite their forms being shed, they-or more accurately- she in her mad thoughts, welcomed the coming doom with open arms wide. Watching with grim rapture with a simplistic borderline rapturous pleasure of basking in the beauty of the shining suns.

Seawater boiled all around her. Her oaken longboat etched with foul runes that spoke of veneration to the Serpent were burning. Written in the blood of virgins, soaked with malefic taint to Prince of Pleasure was being purified by the light of the Old Ones. Her once-mighty longboat with a generations of sagas etched into its oaken wood, now becomes the vessel for her clan's funerary pyre.

She stood at the head of the deck, near the bow of her dying ship, its serpentine figurehead of many ages now ablaze. Eyes burnt black to charcoal from gazing at the celestial splendor, she held no notion of regret for beholding the celestial splendor. But such things as eyes were no longer needed for her to 'see'. For the sensations she felt across her body, blessed by her god, was all she needed to SEE everything.

'Pity' she thought, watching her mewling kinsmen with disgusted shame. Who often boasted over bonfires to be blessed by the Serpent. Yet here they were, writhing in agony like lowly worms. 'How weak-stomached are you louts?' she finished, her scornful gaze dripping with spite.

Did they not see that there was nothing to fear in death? Nor should they shy away from this beautiful spectacle. It was an exquisite sensation like no other, and they will see it again. This moment was not something to be feared, but to be savored. Such radiance, such warmth, such energy, was something to be appreciated.

"Have we angered the gods mother?" A young boy asked with a whimpering plea. His voice, bashful and meek looked towards his most precious person in the world. His jarl, strong and ever so beautiful. She was truly a figure of desire, honed with a physique that could crush a man in her iron grip, yet exude sensual eroticism. But such things mattered nothing to her, the chieftain.

'Oh no no no.' she thought amused. Looking down at her most prized treasure. He was the reason she has thrived, from the moment of her conceivement to today the moment where all they desire will be granted to them by their god.

More important than being the most beautiful of her kin, more than being the undisputed jarl of her clan, more so than even being the mightiest warrior of their tribe; She was a mother above all. His mother.

A tiny fur-lined gloved hand-squeezed, his small fingers tightly clenched against her slender ones. Grasped in his other hand, was a runic axe just right for his size. A master-crafted weapon where the axe head was once inscribed with the rune of Grungni, now reforged to bear the mark of the Serpent. His most cherished possession when his father still lived among the living.

Claimed for his own after bludgeoning a dwarfen ranger that almost took his now-deceased father's life in the woods of Nordland. They and the whole clan feasted hard that night. With his father happily hauling him high on his shoulders in celebration of his first step to manhood. Partaking the spoils of their raid, with freshly slaughtered meat roasted over a roaring fire and drinking deep from fine dwarf made ale.

It was a night of many firsts for the youngling. At the age of ten winters, he has gone through many adventures with his clan to prove his strength in the eyes of his family and the gods. With Skeggi being his home and birth land; The jungle culls the weak and devours the ignorant, but returns its viciousness with plentiful bounty. He was one of few children that have survived the jungle during his growth. He had lost many friends and even family who were too weak to survive the perils of the jungle lands the lizard's call home.

Despite it all with its many dangers, he and his clan could always take comfort and proudly proclaim calling Skeggi home.

Until today. Attacks from the lizardmen were not uncommon, but there was something different from the stupid raids the lizards have always done. There was a sense of energy in the air. It smelled of savagery familiar to the lizards, but honed with an overwhelming, indomitable focus that shrouded them like a blaze.

He heard from his mother and clansmen that a Slann was among the lizards that came to attack. Equal parts excitement and trepidation erupted afterwards, saying that it is an ill omen but also a great opportune. Moreso when this one was supposedly the legendary Solar Lord of Lustria himself in the words of his mother and gathered shamans.

He did not understand it back then, the only thing he took back from the discussion, was that the slann was a portent of terrible doom. Should they survive this would be a victory like no other for Skeggi.

How foolish they were to think so.

Their shamans were the first to immediately erupt in a flash of flames, their bodies turned to ash in the blink of an eye. Their enchanted charms and whatever totems they carried on their persons exploded into fragmented shards, before those shattered bits crumbled further to dust. But none of them brought his heart to despair like the visage that laid before him, his home was in flames. Both the city and the boats with which they use to travel the world were slowly being destroyed before his very eyes. Memories are being destroyed and places of sentiment were being put to the torch.

This was the end. He knew it now. The end of Skeggi. Any dreams he had of rising to greatness with Skeggi as his foundation, were being destroyed by these cursed savages!

A soft stroke brushed against his still burning crackled cheek. Breaking the boy out from his damning thoughts. That same hand, still held tightly against his own. He looked to see the mischievous smile of her fanged maw.

"Hush now my son, there is no need to be afraid or say such silly things." she chided softly. "The Serpent watches over us still. How do you think that instead of writhing like the worms we call kin, we instead bask the sensational warmth that we are experiencing now?"

"Isn't this pain wondrous my son?" she asked with pure manic glee

The boy stopped for a second, then he smiled nodding at his mother, his heart feeling lighter at the truth. While they were still dying, the pain of their combustion an ongoing agony, they did not perceive their burning forms as torture. No, their existence was one of pleasurable warmth. The simplicity, that is the touch of warm kiss of the suns in the sky.

It was like his mother said, it was unique, thrilling, and morst above all. **Pleasurable**.

There was no reason to feel death here, for their god was with them even, when they will inevitably leave the mortal coil.

"Will I get to meet my ancestors?" He asked excitedly, looking up to his mother. Eager to meet with his deceased ancestors told only in tales by their shamans. Better still, mayhaps they will be reunited with his father so that they could all be together again.

The mother smiled down. A duality of expressions bloomed on her ravenous yet enchanting features. An opposing dichotomy of sensual barbarity and maternal passion beheld the mother as she kneeled down to level herself to her son.

Her burnt black sockets glowed with a purplish light. While showing a terrifying smile filled with beastly ivory razors for teeth. Her god blessed her with an enviable beauty that was matched only by her savagery. Her once violet eyes shined like shimmering pools of violet when she ripped the innards of her enemies with her teeth. Plenty a man was subject to her tender mercies. With their bleached bones and tanned leather skin woven into the armor of her skirt.

But to the boy, this was the loving mother who would tell her stories of their ancestors and lovingly hold him close to her breasts, while teaching him how to break slaves fit for trade with the Hashut Dwarfs.

To him. Her son; She was no rapist of more than a thousand men and women who feasted on their essence. No depraved mass of malignant malice. No connoisseur seeker of sensual soul-shattering sensations beyond human reasoning.

No. She is and forever his mother. Whose love for him knows no bounds. A love that he would do **anything** to defend from.

Said mother glanced for but a moment at the zeal in her son's eyes, and smiled in rapture at such devotion. She could not be more proud!

The mark of the serpent tattooed on her face burned, but she delighted in the pleasure through every pore in her skin being violated towards destruction by the three suns in the sky. The heat. The warmth. The rapturous sensations were wonderful indeed when she chose this path. Pain and pleasure were one and the same. A feeling that she was all too happy to share with her loving boy. And she loved showering her son with affection as much as she loved feasting on her next prey.

She opened her arms and embraced her precious treasure that was gifted to her. She ruffled the now burnt-out remains of what little hair he had left, but that did not matter in the end. Their time has come, but it will not truly be the end.

Only the beginning.

"Better still, we will sit with them at their table, my son. As we will soon relish in the infinite pleasures beyond this world." she hugged him tighter to her bosom. Mother and son cherished each other's warmth without fear of their coming death.

"The gods will avenge us surely. And when they have need of us, we will answer their call." she shushed him when she felt her son holding her tighter.

In her final act of love for her only child, she gently kissed his forehead. Her charred blackened lips branded him with Slannesh's mark. Binding them together. Where the bond of mother and son can never be broken even by death. His soul, forever damned to the tune of the Prince of Pleasure

The two suns flared. Skeggi that day was cast in a cleansing blast of white.

Chotek's judgement arrived this day.

And the pleasure god welcomed them to his/her eternal embrace.

~Ironbrawn Gate (Destroyed)~

'_It is inexcusable that it has taken this long…_' the Slann moaned thoughtfully. His grief was as deep as the darkest chasms, its weight able to swallow entire mountains in his sorrow. A rare moment of sadness in the amber eyes of the most powerful living mage in the world.

Mazdamundi absolutely **relished** that brief moment of satisfaction; to witness the artificial suns of the engines unleashed their extermination streams on Skeggi's wharf. He took immense delight in watching the desperate wretched warmbloods trying to protect themselves from a manifestation of the Old One's technological apogee from a time of their greatness.

Sadly, this moment of satisfaction, fulfilling as it were, was brief, and was snuffed out as quickly as it came. Swallowed underneath an oceanic weight of bitterness. Unable to quench his rage worth of ten long millennia! For the Great Plan was in motion, he must act! Time was against him. He will seize their future, the world needs their guidance!

"Go forth my warriors!" Mazdamundi swept the ancient Cobra Mace forward; into Skeggi's vulnerable gaping rubbled wound. While it may not be by his own hand, its defenses were finally broken this day! "Let loose your rage! Let Tlanxla's fury flow through your essence and decimate this **mistake** to the Great Plan!"

"**FOR THE OLD ONES!**" Lord Mazdamundi shouted both from his physical mouth and telepathically to his vanguard warriors. His declaration shook the world and such strength was will and power sent rippling shockwaves through the atmosphere. Friend and foe heard the slann, loud and clear.

His frontline warriors were let loose, racing towards their quarry, thunder rumbling in the wake of their rushing stampede. These Saurus Warriors would be the opening salvo to prosecute Mazdamundi's war. A living battering.

The lizards of Lustria heeded his command gladfully, and they obeyed with fire in their cold hearts. Primal fury swept through their very beings. From the smallest skink to the mightiest of beasts, they roared their warcry while their drums beat to the tune of retribution at long last.

After many failures through the ages, Skeggi finally falls this day. There was no other option.

Like river water streaming into a pond, his vanguard host flooded into the city. Devastation wrought whatever stood in their path. Sundering the blighted city at long last.

Not even a few minutes after they passed through the rubbled gateway, Mazdamundi saw a building being toppled immediately when a saurus cohort too deep in their fury simply smashed through the structure's foundation, wall to wall.

Unsurprisingly it fell right on top of them. But their disregard for caution ironically is what also allowed the zealous cohort to escape being entirely crushed. Though at the cost of several of their brothers. He will have to rein them in eventually but his priorities lie elsewhere.

He watched as the remains of the frontline defenders crumbled, before the lightning strike, heedless of self-preservation, breaking thorough line after line of warmbloods heedless of their welfare.

The most difficult part of the operation was only just beginning. No doubt a greater danger lay hidden in a city founded by the dark gods.

"_My foresight is fogged, but there is no doubt in their desperation to deny my victory they will no doubt plead for aid from the Ancient Enemy; a Greater Daemon. I would expect no less from this tainted city..." _the slann pondered grimly. His calculating mind anticipating the possible scenarios he must counter in order to claim victory.

While his mind remained alert, he let his body have a moment of respite. He leaned back, resting his bulk against the stone seat of his palanquin. His howdah feeling immeasurably heavier to the skink crew and his bodyguards. Psychic crown channeling his complex myriad spectrum of emotions that only emboldened his cohorts. Anger, sadness, joy, despair, rage, all of these served as fuel to fan the flames of the lizardmen's wrath.

If he had his way; invoking the Ruination of Cities would be but a simple matter for a Second Generation Slann, one push of his thoughts, and he can create apocalyptic devastation Skeggi thought inconceivable by mortal magics. Once that was settled, he would terraform the landscape and shape it into a desolate volcanic wasteland, creating a natural barrier of molten rivers and rock if the tainted warmbloods dare to even think of being able to reclaim the land Skeggi once was.

Alas, such devastation would lose them the Sacred Plaques vital to enact the rituals. Unfortunately, that meant a softer touch was needed. Purging the warmbloods here was a personal desire, even if it aligned with the first step in the coming journey for the Vortex.

"_Then there are the names…_" he grumbled. Remembering the thankfully short list of names, but almost all of them reside in the Old World. Beyond his reach, with only his champions able to have any hope of achieving them.

Instructions within the Sacred Plaque of the Warhammer have listed names other than the warmblood Karl Franz. One of them supposedly resided here. A fellow son of their warmblood god Sigmar that required him alive in the coming days. He sniffed in displeasure at the thought of sparring one, much less a handful for the Great Plan. Still, he would do no less than what is expected.

Fortunately, he was the only one he needed to obtain in Lustria and by extension all who followed him.

Setting aside his distaste, Mazdamundi resumed his commitment to bear witness to the procession that took precedence while his vanguard force cleared the way. The glassing of Skeggi.

Twin clouds of heated dust erupted high into the skies while roiling mists of boiled seawater clouded the oceanic horizon. Per Mazdamundi's instructions, Skink crews manning the Engine of the Gods followed through with his very specific instructions down to the exact number of his command to target where the sea met the beach.

Their results spoke for themselves, the devastation his wisdom wrought. Hot sand blew over from the coast to shower the warmbloods in a hurricane of searing minerals. Sheer pressure from the glassing sandblasts sundered materials and flayed flesh. Bodies disintegrated into fine red mists by the still-burning microscopic glass particles, perforating their fragile bodies until not even their bones were spared.

While from the sea, an endless supply of ocean water fueled the roiling cloud of boiling mists Shrouding the ships that served as the naval shield of Skeggi in a wall of scalding fog. Long have the disparate assortment of ships functioned as artillery batteries for mainland support and a defensive screen for invading seafarers. Mazdamundi's first strike ensured he crippled their fleet capability for the foreseeable future. He has no intention of letting a single soul leave.

Violent, crashing waves and scorching fog sent all into disarray. Chaos engulfed the warmbloods as the very element they thrived in was turned against them. Those thrown overboard by the shock of the waves suffered an agonizing death as they were boiled alive by the burning seawater. It burned them just as well as fire as their skin popped and boiled. Their eyes were the first to rupture as ocular fluids burst open from their skulls before the rushing water cooked them from the inside and drowned them at the same time.

Unfortunately, their deaths were merciful compared to the waking agony their fellow sailors are forced to suffer, for their deaths were not swift. Like the gaping maw of the legendary Merwrym of Ulthuan, the scorching mist of evaporated seawater engulfed the ships in a blanket of fog.

Over a thousand wailed in their death throes. The people on the shore heard not their cries for help, for the roaring blaze of the Burning Alignment deafened their pleas.

That was the first mistake they made, was to scream and curse and shout in response to the pain. A mistake they don't have the capacity to regret; for when they breathe, they take into their lungs the scorching moisture of the mist. Trapped in a cycle of suffering. Their need to express their pain only furthered their waking agony, for they suffocated as the sensation of misty fire boiled in their lungs.

Moisture blasted bodies dropped on their decks, the scorching mist made it no different to if they were being burned alive. They felt the raw sensation of their skin screaming red. Every spasming nerve in their body screamed as they felt their skin being stretched taut. Fluid filled blisters formed under their skin before they burst, exposing sensitive flesh to the cooking fog. Eyes searing in their skulls before their liquids popped no matter how tight they closed their lids.

Against the scorching mist, their very bodies were turned against them. One can build a defense against the harshness of the elements. But not against the elements of the body. Fats were rendered, blood cells exploded, matter disintegrating against superheated water.

Mazdamundi saw it all in great detail. Not just with his physical eyes, but through psychic senses as well. He could 'see' their life force fleeting from the material plane. Some souls drifted in the ether to reach the realm of their gods, and others he could see with disgust heading northwards towards the realm of Chaos.

Yet, despite this overwhelming and momentous display of long-awaited vindication through solar fire. Grief and misery still outweighed the satisfaction.

"Let this sacrifice be the first of many in hopes of restoring this broken world." He groaned and mused with sorrow.

A piece of his land. Personally entrusted to him by the Old Ones and Lord Kroak themselves for more than ten millennia, burned at HIS command. True, with his power, It would be but an effortless matter to simply reshape the beach to how it originally was. But its natural beauty, the substance of its creation, was forever gone.

Least he could do when this deed was done, was to construct a Geomantic Nexus temple in its place. The more nodes connected to the Geomatic Web to bolster the Great Warding, the better. His previous thoughts of turning Skeggi into a wasteland, while fresh and tempting, must be set aside in favor of his duty to further the Great Plan.

The steaming mists eventually subsided. Much to their relief. If only because the contact area of the beams separated the sea from the shore. So intense was the heat, the evaporated water pushed against the greater ocean swell.

Burning streams parted in opposing directions from each other. Where the light touched, a fissure of crystallized glass was left in its wake. A moat of molten rock and glass crystals stretched from the center separated land and sea. With the ocean water cooling the molten residue to form the lip of a newly raised landmass.

Without thought or care the beam projections followed its programmed route set by the skinks specifically to Lord Mazdamundi's instructions.

Chotek's cleansing rays glassed Skeggi' wharf in its entirety. Stone, sand and wood underwent disintegration on a molecular level, scattering their remains into the wind. Some excess, however, were trapped in the storm of its fire, melting around the radii in its blast zone.

Molten mass simultaneously formed and cooled, pressed between the cooling ocean and the furnace of the beams. Layers of magma folded in on itself. Over and over, this cycle repeated. A rare sight not seen since ancient times past.

Cold-blooded eyes shone like immaculate razored jewels. Captive to the beauteous act of divine retribution that has been delayed for so long. Chieftains, priests and warriors from the deepest jungles of Lustria have been gathered here today by the will of the Old Ones.

Through the Second-Generation Slann, Lord Mazdamundi.

Their new age to restore the world from the Great Enemy has come at last.

"**FORWARD MY SAURUS WARRIORS!"** Lord Mazdamundi of Hexoatl roared with a drumming guttural bellow. Emerald eyes from his cobra mace shined brightly in the sun, eager to defend its master from enemy spells and curses.

"**RAZE THIS WRETCHED STAIN FROM SACRED LANDS!"**

And so did the lizards charged as one at the behest of their mage-priest. Their roars of fury shook the skies, while clawed feet thundered across lustrian soil.

Under the blazing sun, with the light of the sacred banner at their backs. Lizards from all castes of their order thundered towards what remained of the first warmblood defensive lines. A sweeping tide of claws and scales descended on Skeggi like a tide.

Digitigrade feet swarmed over blackened rubble. The shattered remains of the very barrier that has held them off for generations now all but dust beneath their claws.

Saurus cohorts crashed into a mixed cadre of warmblood fighters who were able to rally back into formation, met their charge in kind only to be sent sailing through the air against superior sinew and unity befitting the main enforcers of a lizardmen army.

Some followed the vanguard's example and just smashed their way after picking a direction.

Others scaled atop houses to dive deeper into Skeggi to sow their own chaos against the warmbloods. Darting across rooftops to skirmish against defenders situated at elevated positions or harass those down below from the relative safety of higher ground.

While the kroxigors and the feral beasts of Lustria do as their mighty frames were built for and rampaged under the guidance of skink handlers, demolishing whatever poor obstacle laid in their paths into fine rubble.

Cold blooded eyes shined in the light of the sun with a powerful purpose. One that transcended beyond something as mundane over reclamation of trinkets or petty spite. They were here to fulfill their duty to the Great Plan.

The crusade of Lord Mazdamundi, Slann Mage-Priest of Hexoatl, has officially begun; with the extermination of Skeggi.

After millennia of stubborn defiance from this ruinous-founded city. Just from simply existing, became ever a constant source of distortion in the Old One's Great Plan. The Lizardmen will finally rectify this gross error, and cut away this festering parasite from their lands.

His personal challenge against the Ancient Enemy has begun.

~Swampvr Market~

"Hold fast men!" Tilean spearman -recently promoted captain after his death- Rodolfo Giorno, cried out desperately to the remains of what's left of his men. Packed together, shoulder to shoulder, and back to back, they held off the towering saurus cohort from penetrating into the market district.

Their adhoc holdout was far from a solid bastion. A narrow lane with stalls that lined the sides. Not too long ago merchants would sell their goods and coin changed hands. The colourful signs, calls making their goods known with racks and crates of all manner of goods, from food to arms and armour, was traded here. Now those had been looted of anything that could be used in their desperate situation and the stalls themselves formed into obstacles and spiked barricades by the defenders.

Chatter travelled fast and the situation was abysmal everywhere. No surprise. It couldn't get any more obvious than having the primary wall utterly demolished or suns being formed and used as weapons.

One of his men's shouted warnings, broke the captain of his musings. "Javelins incoming!"

Rodolfo hunkered down, his men already followed suit to weather the coming rain. From above, and the front. The pause in the push was a deafening silence for the worst. He clenched his teeth until they felt like cracking. How could this happen? His company had only recently arrived on this wretched place! How could this happen?

A savage chorus of primal might signaled the lizardmen to make their push. A wave of scales, armour and weaponry driven by inhumanly powerful muscle. Tilean shields raised and spears lowered.

There was promise at first, Rodolfo felt his own spear drive into something soft as he thrust it forwards into the mass of lizardmen. But as they approached-

Captain Rodolfo felt the wind leave him. His already dwindled strength leaving. He and his men lost their footing. More than one poor soul lost their balance entirely, and disappeared under the screen of their shields. No doubt crushed underfoot as they could hear the sounds of meat and bone breaking. Screams of alarm became those of agony and finally groans of the dying.

Then came the whistle of the rain. Lacquered wood pelted their steely shields. Like falling rain against tiled rooftops of houses and listening to the patter of their impacts. If that was their only problem, they would have found it laughable.

What remained of their discipline and camaraderie held. An attempt to interlock shields upwards to stop the missiles from striking them and those around them as best they could. Few prevailed stopping the projectiles.

It wasn't nearly enough.

Helplessly, Rodolfo watched the rain of simple spears made pincushions of his compromised formation. Steel spear points simply bounced off their Saurus kin, their scaled hides as tough as chainmail. The lizard's push against their formation disrupted their fortitude, it widened the gaps vulnerable like an exposed wound.

A few of the javelins were thrown with enough force to perforate the shields entirely, striking through shield arms and bodies. One poor bastard keeled over when one of the javelins splintered off, only to be jammed into his eye. Worse, he was still alive. His agony was legendary, the slim piece of jagged wood didn't penetrate enough through his skull, instead it was lodged inside the lad's eye socket. He howled, far and wide, he tumbled to the ground wailing in untold agony. If the splinters didn't hurt already, the exotic toxins the lizards love to coat them with would seal his doom.

Hiis suffering -thankfully, was brief. The sod's writhing wail was soon silenced when boots from his own men trampled over the poor man. Before he too disappeared beneath lizard claws. His twitchy gurgling corpse would be silenced completely with the rushing crunch of meat and steel.

Worse, he could see all around him that they were being far too close for comfort. Any further, and this band of lizards will break through into the market if they lose this street.

"KEEP IT TOGETHER!" He shouted through the pain. His chest crushed against his shield arm while his feet scrambled to regain traction. All the while the rain of javelins continued to whittle them down.

Their salvation came with the sound of pins being loosened.

"Choke on these you savage beasts!" Rodolfo faintly heard through his labored breathing. Shadowy shapes flickered over him and his men from behind. Grenadiers. They were saved!

Chirps and clicks squawked with alarm. Explosions erupted from the otherside, the heat and force washed over both him and the lizards. Unbalancing both momentarily. More importantly, no more javelins. His ears rang, but he and his unit were abuzz with relief. Slowly they felt their spirits steadily rising back.

Boots caked in lustrian soil dug back into the paved ground. "HOLD MEN!"

The lizard's once solid push slowed to a crawl "**HOOOLD!**" He roared harder. Vigor flaming back into his body. "Myrmidia lights our way!"

"**BY MYRMIDIA'S LIGHT!**"

Men united in strength, makes all things possible. Now relieved from projectiles through the salvation of the Grenadiers, spears were thrust forwards in steady unity and shields held steadfast against their monstrous enemy.

Much like how the lizardmen are united in their Great Purpose, so do men united in each other and the gods who protect them. What once he thought was an imminent slow death, Rodolfo found renewed strength.

Shadows loomed over Rodolfo as he peered over his shield, staring up at the towering reptile man in front of him. The Tilean bared his teeth and snarled in defiance. It and its beasts will not see them broken here.

A moment of folly on Rodolfo's part as his pride overtook his judgement, as the beast in question glared back and his head struck out like a whip. Rows of teeth momentarily overtook his vision. For a brief moment, he could see inside the throat of the saurian lizard.

Rodolfo yelped, survival instincts snapping back his head on reflex, his moment of bravado now silent like the dead. Head narrowly missed by a breath, preserving it from being mauled right from his shoulders. Four spears retaliated to his defense, stabbing into the saurus lizardman's hide.

Both lungs, probably a liver and its heart, the spear points stabbed exactly where they should be to kill a man. Even an orc could die from such wounds. Problem was, it didn't kill the reptile. Saurus lizardmen were unnaturally hardy, their biology ever a mystery to this day. Cascade destruction of major vital organs do not slow or immediately kill them until they reach a point where they do die. In some extreme cases, entire limbs were needed to be cut off just to stop them from being able to fight back.

Bleeding but unbowed, the saurus warrior was forced back -not through pain- but from the force of four men pushing the lizard back to protect their comrade.

"Bless you fine men!" Rodolfo huffed in relief from escaping the literal jaws of his near death. He ducked his head back down and resumed to push back. "When we win this lads, we will feast tonight!" Thrusting his spear into the saurus that nearly ate him in a moment of much deserved retaliation.

Cheers sprouted all over, morale climbing back up from the reprieve and encouragement.

Rodolfo felt pride swelling in his chest, but the doubt of fear still lingered. Even when the sound of blackpowder guns and bombs rang all around them; they were still surrounded.

Once the center of bustling trade for merchants and hawkers to Skeggi, now one of the few- or worse only- defensible rally points after the initial attack. With Fort Skeggi as the only exception.

Swampvr Market; Skeggi's economic beating heart of commerce was being squeezed to bursting and stabbed with so many needles from every direction. Mockingly still, what lizards didn't try to break them, they were ignored. And lizardmen aren't known for their arrogance.

It was a pitiable situation. Stalls once hosted merchants that sold their wares or cooks roasting over spits were broken down and used as material to make way for barricades. Their injured and civilians took shelter here, they cannot fail them!

"INCOMING!" Someone manning a sentry tower shouted to his fellows below. "MORE LIZARDS FROM THE-ghk!"

That brought in a fresh wave of fear. Flickers of hope brought about by the arrival of their Grenadiers died like so many embers. Replaced by despair as he gazed up at the strangled voice who made the call.

Blood splattered all across his tunic. Throat slit open by a black dagger from behind. Precious red life fluids spilled everywhere around his watch box. He watched the horrid flow of blood, leaving the sentry's body.

Fresh with the blood of his enemy, the skink warrior rammed his dagger again the now deceased guard's chest. Tearing flesh and breaking rib bones, he grasped tightly on his prize, and ripped his targeted organ straight from the warmblood's body. The heart.

"SOTEK KYUN!" The skink brave shouted for all its brethren to hear and see. Red fin crests flared brightly amidst the din of battle. Before crushing it in its clawed fist. Blood gushed between its leathery fingers like a fruit being squeezed off its juices.

Wet. Heavy. Red. Blood fell in a beautiful crimson stream. Creating for a brief moment a shrouded world of red behind its liquid veil. It painted the ground, splattering precious life bearing fluid all over the plaza below.

"SOTEK KYUN!" "RU'DAN SOTEK!" "SOTEK CHALIBAKSHA!"

Over and over the lizards chanted to some sort of pagan god; Sotek. It disturbed him as he could feel such fervor that matched zealotry from Sigmarite battle priests.

It felt like an eternity. A brief horrific moment that left like days. Rodolfo felt a foreboding crawl up through his spine, something ill. Something terrible about to befall on him, his men, and everyone they were protecting. Charged; was the best he could describe the feeling in the air.

Something had shifted. All around them, the skink lizards started to crow and caw. Collective warbled squawking growing louder every passing second. Whatever happened, clearer heads clearly will not allow whatever foul ritual to pass as the fighting continued when one of their own snapped out of the moment of bewilderment and tried to hack at one of the lizards that were still squawking.

The battle resumed, yet one can clearly see there was a renewed sense of zeal in lizard eyes. There was no bloodlust, but there was a sense of newfound ferocity in their movements. An energy in their being. More importantly for Rodolfo, aside from the lizard's morale being lifted, nothing had happened.

Everything looked the same; defenders at their positions, the citizenry safe behind their lines, with him and his men holding back the enemy. Mayhaps whatever they planned to achieve had been prevented?

Rodolfo would soon learn that the portent behind the ill wind would be proven to be correct. And tragically to the once simple Tilean man with dreams of high adventure and derring-do, it will be his last.

A hiss of pain cried out to the man on his left. Sweat broke out against his already matted feature. Skin turning pallid as he could visibly see his strength leaving.

Something hissed in Rodolfo's ears, and slithered at his feet.

Rodolfo yelped. "Snakes?!"

Surely a serpent. Patterned red and black bit into the leg through the fabric of his brother in arms. Yet that was not the woe that betide Rodolfo and his company. It was not one snake that struck terror in his heart.

There were dozens, no, hundreds of snakes emerging all around them!

"THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!" "MYRMIDIA GUIDE US!" "HELP!"

Shrieks of fright resounded throughout the plaza. Like shrieking bells, helpless pleas for salvation rang across the market. Cries that once rang to raise morale, changed to cries of distress and desperation.

Horror shook his soul. And with it, the solidarity as a united fighting force crumbled to dust. Snakes seemed to emerge from the shadows, materializing out of the corners of his eyes and even the tiled ground ruptured to make way for more serpents to sprout like rampant weeds.

A plague. A plague of serpents, manifested to aid the lizards by the will of their god, their... Sotek. Serpents of all kinds and colors flooded throughout the market plaza, blanketing the grounds in a carpet of venomous slithering scales. Futilely, they tried to fight back, hopping from one foot to another, crushing or cutting the serpents from biting them.

But there were just too many.

Rodolfo winced, biting his lip from crying out in pain, he didn't need to see the cause, but still his eyes drawn. Two snakes bit through the fabric of his trousers. Needled fangs released their potent toxins, liquid fire coursing through his veins.

His strength was quickly fading. He couldn't breathe as his lungs were seized, paralyzed by the toxin. Mouth foaming uncontrollably, as drool overflowed from his lips. He feels warm spots in his trousers as the smell of urine and shit hit his nose. Rodolfo was losing all sense of feeling.

Finally...his shield arm slackened.

Swift as lightning, a mighty blow struck. Rodolofo heard a crack like thunder vibrated inside his skull. Before he even realized what happened, his body laid prone. Not on the market grounds, but atop the constant slithering stream of the innumerable serpents that flood Swampvr Market.

His world was dazed, sound became muted, muffled. He couldn't hear anything, but he could still see. Praise Shalaya, he was alive!

He tried to move...but something was terribly wrong...

Rodolfo Giorrno in fact, could not move, to his horror, he couldn't even tilt his head. Cold realisation dawned on him, he has lost all sense of feeling. His mind still functioned, but was now disconnected from his body from that decisive blow. He was crippled. Such a strike from a Saurus' fist would have outright killed a man. But he was still alive, though not for long.

Worse, his eyes were still open to the horrible reality that bled into his sights. Red was all he could see. A world dyed in the tint of blood. Red ichor gushed from his cracked skull. Draping over his face like a mask. Rivulets pooling into his already red eyes from ruptured blood vessels.

Darkness was quickly taking him, surely sending him to rest in Morr's kingdom. Yet he found no peace in his death. His last vision before his eventual departure would be to watch helplessly, as the thrice damned lizard with the bloodied fist, his blood, trample over the broken bodies of his men. Once they were killed down to the last man, it was nothing less than an act of honorless butchery as it and its gods-forsaken kind slaughtered defenceless citizens.

Morr's gentle hand slowly was slowly whisking him towards a restful slumber, but the vision that laid before him, stirred an uncontrollable fire that would not allow his soul to be at peace. It burned beneath his breast. Igniting a raw hatred he didn't think he had. Even when his sight was going dark, he vowed that justice will come even if he has to come back as a spirit!

It was Seething. Needing. A bubbling cauldron of rage stirred inside him! He was still alive! Hot with a desire for vengeance! With the need to satiate this wrong against him and to those he has failed!

Unbeknownst to Rodolfo, his desire was heard.

For when his vision finally went dark... something spoke in the blackness. _**'Do you seek strength?'**_a voice whispered in the void. Shocking him briefly as to who was this stranger? It was hot, its deep baritone rumbled like a furnace. Thick with the smell of brass and the iron taste of blood. The darkness began to shift, like a veil being lifted-

A wet and meaty crunch was the last he heard before he could think no more. Gone was the man named Rodolfo Giorno, his head destroyed to a mushy pulp. Rodolfo Giorno, former son of a merchant, died beneath a saurus foot.

AN: Iam so sorry for the long update, it is inexcusable how long this took after multiple rewrites. I am so sorry, series of events really got me down, not to mention this chapter was especially difficult to write. By the time this chap is uploaded, the outline for my next chapter will be written. I intend to discipline myself and put in the effort to have regular updates. There is a ton I want to share and I sorely need to learn self-control and discipline in my work if I want to make this a regular thing as well a way to earn a living.

Thanks again to Holy Hand Grenade for help with this chapter, do check out his stuff if you want to commission fanart or if you're interested in help with your own fics. We will do what we can to help.

Thank you for your time, and hopefully the next chap won't take as long as a Slann taking a nap.


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